


Following the Tracks

by LittleMissSweetgrass



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Family Issues, M/M, Minor Character Death, Raoul is Rafs older brother, Slow Build, Slow To Update, Team as Family, will add characters as they appear, world building
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-04-17 18:23:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14194980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleMissSweetgrass/pseuds/LittleMissSweetgrass
Summary: At the start of TFP they mentioned it's been three years since the last Decepticon attack, but what if it was also the last time they lost a team member?Tracks was attacked and abandoned in New York City with no way to contact his fellow Autobots. It just so happens that he meets a young man that will help him survive amongst the humans until he can make it back to his team, but what if he can't make it back to them before they leave Earth?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Im gonna take a swing at multichapter fics, so please bare with me!
> 
> I fell in love with Tracks/Raoul, and really wanted to shove both of them into the TFP verse. So basically Tracks came to Earth with Arcee and Cliff, but three years prior to the series start they got attacked in NY and separated from each other. Cliff and Arcee never stopped looking for Tracks, since sometimes Ratchet's machines blips and shows that hes still functioning, which is why Cliff was bothering the NYPD at the start of the series.
> 
> This whole fic will be from Raoul's POV, and each chapter will be one moment of them together and the struggles they face over the years
> 
> This Work Is Not Beta'd, but i will go over past chapters and edit with each new chapter and fix mistakes or add things to help the flow of the story as i grow as a writer, probaby

Raoul loved his family, don't get him wrong he would willingly die or kill for any of his four siblings, but living in butt-fuck nowhere Nevada was really cramping his style. 

He's always been an odd child. Even though he was born in the 90's, he grew up on his parents love for the decade prior. He used to love to sit in his mother's lap in the basement, looking at all her old records, watching nothing but their old 80’s family movies, and playing dress-up in all of his father’s old rock-styled clothes with his older brother, Antonio. In kindergarten his parents and teacher laughed when he said he wanted to be like the singer Prince when he grew up. 

But none of this beat his love for the 80’s style cars. This was something nourished by his father. His dad would take him and Antonio out of town to car shows in the summer and Raoul never felt more in awe than he did when he was looking at the old Corvettes, Datsuns, Porches, and Lamborghinis. The day some nice old man let him sit in the front seat of his old Stingray Corvette, Raoul felt like it was meant to be and put all his child effort into learning about cars, and how to remodel vintage ones. 

It was a little out there, interest wise, for his family. Both his parents were computer engineers, and Antonio was already labeled as gifted and showing keen interest in the sciences. His baby sister, Pilar, was four years old already impressing her teachers with her quick grasp of the fine arts. There was talk in the family about getting her tested for the gifted program as well. As a kid, Raoul didn't mind that others thought his interest in cars seemed a little mundane compared to his siblings, his family encouraged it and that was enough for him.

It didn't last, of course. The constant disapproval from his teachers that he was distracted, not paying attention in class, wasting his potential- it all weighed heavy on him and he soon found himself coasting through school. He didn’t have a lot of classmates that shared his interests. In fact, Raoul wouldn't claim he had any real friends in any of the schools he went too. 

To him, his friends were a couple of teens from New York that he meet through an internet forum. Poplock and Rocksteady- not their real names of course, but the usernames they used that became nicknames- honestly helped him survive his middle and high school years. Unfortunately, Raoul managed to slip under the radar in his family, between how busy his parents were at work, and how eventful his siblings' lives were, no one really stopped to notice that Raoul was dealing with his own problems. There were a couple of assholes he went to high school with, that would holler cat-calls and insults at him. Slurs against him and his family were flung into his face until he had enough.

Suddenly, there was attention directed at Raoul, but it wasn't good. His parents were horrified to find out he was involved in a fight, but it wasn't going to be the last one. Almost every week he came home with new bruises, venting his years of frustration out on those who were cruel to others. 

By the time he was sixteen, Raoul was honestly tired of his mom’s crying when he came home with split lips and black eyes after fights. He was tired of having to see the look of panic or anger in his younger siblings' eyes when he was dragged off to the nurse's office or detention again. And as much as he’d like to stop the fights for her sake, for his family's sake, he’s not just gonna stand there without teaching the bullies a lesson. If anyone bothered to listen to the younger kids around town as they spoke of him, they would know if you ever needed help, Raoul Esquivel was the guy to go too. 

The only adult that seemed to know how smart Raoul was, his auto shop teacher, helped him by getting him to engage in his interests more. He talked to a friend, and managed to set Raoul up with a work study apprenticeship at a local car repair shop. The owner was so impressed with his work, that he even offered him a job after school. Since he got that job, he mellowed out some, trading insult for insult, but the fights still happened, especially when he was outnumbered. 

His boss at the local auto-shop had listened to his rants about wanting to leave this town since he hired him, and would always silently slip him a couple more tips at the end of the week. His pitying eyes on the torn skin of the teenager's knuckles and bruised spirit. 

So here he was, finally eighteen, and throwing as many personal belongings into his big suitcase that would fit, while his youngest brother sits on bed, looking heartbroken. The muffled crying of their mother in the next room over was making them both tense. Raoul was the first one to just leave the family just for the sake of leaving, and it was throwing the whole family into a rift. Their mother was determined it was her fault, and he had gotten into so many arguments with his older brother and father about just leaving. Antonio thought he was throwing his life away by not going to college and being dramatic by running away to New York. His father begged him to stay, not too move so far away, maybe move somewhere closer, like San Francisco, where Pilar was planning on going to college once she graduated. Raoul had screamed at them that they didn't understand, that he was tired of being the 'Stupid Esquivel' and needed to find who he was. 

Raoul had had enough, he gave his two week notice at the auto-shop weeks ago, bought his bus ticket, and even made housing arrangements with his internet friends Rocksteady and Poplock about crashing on their couch for a bit until he found his own place. His old boss said to apply for a job at an autoshop called "The Sparkplug" and tell the owner that he sent him, promising to put a good word in for the kid in hopes that he gets a job. All that was left was packing up and catching the bus that same night. 

“Do you really have to go?” The little eight year old’s eyes looked misty as they tracked his older brother zipping around the cramped room, grabbing things seemingly at random. Rafael knew that his brother wasn't happy at home, the countless arguments were more than enough evidence for the child. Rafael was very observant and way smarter than any child should be at his age, following the family tradition, so he knew that Raoul leaving was probably for the best. But it didn't mean it still didn't hurt that his second oldest brother, and honestly his favourite sibling, was leaving.

“Ay, Raf,” Raoul paused from digging in his closet to turn an look at the younger boy and his heartstrings gave a twang. He walked over to his baby brother sat down beside him on the bed, wrapping one arm around the thin shoulders. “I can’t stay here buddy, you know that. Being here, getting in all these fights,” He trailed off, guilt lacing his tone as he could still hear his mother's soft cries. With a shake of his head he gave the younger boy a tight squeeze, then pulled away and ruffled his hair. “We all gotta find our own places in life, and mine isn't here. Besides New York isn’t that far, and I’ll definitely come visit every holiday!” He gave the boy a bright smile, which was weakly copied. “‘Atta boy!”

Raoul looked around briefly, and his eyes lit up when he saw the collectable remote control race car he bought himself for his sixteenth birthday. It had taken months to save up for it, but it was the best in the line, so it was totally worth it. He remembered how much Raf loved to watch him give it a spin, and how happy he was when Raoul let him try it for a minute. He hardly used it anymore because it was a collectors edition, and he was too busy at work saving up for this move. And really, he couldn’t take it with him… “Here Raf, you can look after this for me while I'm gone!” He scooped the yellow and black Camaro off the high shelf and placed it in his younger brother’s hands.

Raf’s eyes went wide. “You're giving me your car?” He sounded a little awed, and Raoul grinned.

“Yup! No one else I’d trust in this whole place to take care of it! Just take it for a drive once in a while, ok? You can show me all the tricks you can do with it when I get back.” Part of his heart cried out at the thought of giving a child a collector’s item, but he knew Raf would need it more than he did right now. And really, out of everyone in the family, Raf took after him the most, interest wise of course. 

They both adored cars, while Raoul liked the vintage ones, Raf would always go wide eyed and awed at the latest models coming out of the showroom. And because of Raoul’s steady teachings, Raf knew how to completely dismantle and reassemble a car engine and perform some basic maintenance. Well, it didn’t help that Raf was smarter than the average eight year old, but really the boy took to machinery like a duck to water and Raoul was more than willing to share all the knowledge he had with the kid.

So really, giving the toy car to Raf was honestly the best thing he could have done right now, as it would hopefully encourage his younger brother to keep up his interest in mechanics. Not to become discouraged like Raoul was and apathetic towards school. And with the look and awed determination in his eyes as he clutched the yellow car to his little chest Raoul knew that he wouldn't end up like him.

Smiling at the wondrous look his little brother was giving him he went back to the closet, pulling out more shirts. Maybe moving out would involve less tears than he thought.


	2. First meetings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1 Year Later

Raoul gave a low whistle as he circled the totalled car he found in the alley behind his apartment. There was some argument or something last night, probably a gang fight, resulting in loud noises at ungodly hours, but in this part of the neighbourhood you got used to that. And even though he hadn’t been living here for very long, he had adapted very fast. He didn’t expect to see this treasure once he woke up though, and was honestly surprised no one has taken it apart for parts yet.

The latino gave an appreciative hum as he peered in the interior of the car, noting the lack of keys in the ignition or on the seats, while running a finger across the dented passenger side door. Honestly, under all that damage and wrecked paint, the car was beautiful. It looked like it might have been an old Corvette Stingray at one point, he couldn’t place the date because of all the damage, but it did look like it was well kept cause the leather seats on the inside looked pristine. No signs of rust and the places of paint that weren’t scratched seemed to gleam a nice rich dark blue in the dull streetlamp light.

The nineteen year old circled the car once more and gave a humm of thought. It would take a bit of time and a lot of cash, but he could totally fix this car right up. So far it looked like it was just cosmetic damage, and once he got it back to his boss’ garage he could see how deep the damage actually was and what it would take to get this baby back on the road. “You're fixable, now we’ll see just what needs fixin'.”

He didn’t know why, but he suddenly got the feeling that someone was watching him, and it sent chills up his spin. Casting a quick glance around showed that no one was looking at him on the ground level, and no one peering down from the apartment windows. But in this city you never knew who was watching. He quickly pulled out his cell phone to call up one of his friends, a coworker named Sam, and who had access to the garage’s tow truck. Hopefully he could help him drag this piece of work back to the shop.

It took a while, but they managed to get the Corvette down a few blocks to the garage that Raoul worked at. His old boss apparently was a family friend of this owner, and was true to his word and past along a few good things about the boy. Raoul was quick to get a job because of that, which was nice. After sleeping on the couch of his internet friends Poplock and Rocksteady for about a month, he was able to move out and get a down payment and a couple months rent on a shitty one person apartment between his pay cheques and his life's savings. 

His new boss was cool and a little weird. Old Man Sparkplug was always going on about aliens and liked to make the weirdest art pieces out of old car parts that he would scatter all over the large, old car lot. But he was pretty lazy and basically let Raoul run things after half a year, confident in the fact that the boy was doing his best and his best was good. So Raoul just took everything in stride. He knew that the old man definitely wouldn’t mind if Raoul used some garage space for a personal project between customers. 

The shop was closed for the week, Sparkplug was visiting his son that lived on the mainland somewhere, so he had more than enough time for planning on what was needed for this baby and getting started on fixing her. On the way over he had mentally tallied all the things he was gonna need to fix the exterior, and how much they had in the shop and others he was gonna have to order, or get with the five finger discount if the cost was too much. If the car was as dated as he thought though, it was gonna cost a pretty penny to fix it up. 

“Ok, now lets see the damage.” He muttered to himself once the car was all set up in the back of the garage and his friends had left. He made sure his ponytail was tied tightly before figuring on how to pop the hood of the car. It looked like something was dragged across the front of the car, causing several large gouges and in some places it even badly warped the metal around the damage. But this meant that the hood wouldn't budge when he tried to lift it. Maybe if he worked on getting out some of the more minor dents around the hood seams first?

He left to go grab the tools needed but pausing before walking back as the hairs on the back of his neck rose. He didn’t realize it until he turned away from the car, but that watching feeling was still there, if it ever left in the first place. Raoul never had paranoia and this was getting out of hand, was he feeling guilty for basically stealing the car? No way, if no one wanted it taken they wouldn’t have left it in a grungy back alleyway. But then why was he still feeling like this in the empty garage?

“You're going crazy man” Raoul gave his head a light shake before walking back to the car. Off handedly, he unlocked the driver's side through the shattered side window and flicked a lever to see if the hood would open without needed assistance. With a groan, the hood did just that and Raoul felt surprised, but pleased he wouldn't have to waste any extra effort. He gave a little cheer, giving the fender of the car happy pats and a pleased “Ey, ‘atta girl!” He pushed the hood all the way up, propped it up with the little stand, and got his first look at what made this baby tick.

He promptly gasped and scrambled back, almost tripping over his own feet.

What the fuck that was not a normal engine! Cars did not look like that! Cars definitely did not glow and seem to pulse like that either.

“Sweet Mother Mary and Joseph, what the fuck!” Raoul hissed as he hesitantly stepped back to the glowing engine, eyes wide. This was too weird, and way too strange to be just a custom job. He didn’t even think you could get a custom job like this? He could barely describe it, but the machinery almost seemed to pulse? There were definitely some thick tubes tucked behind the engine that looked like they were definitely pulsing with some glowing blue liquid. Some special kind of coolant maybe? And the engine itself was quietly still thrumming, not noticeable until he was actually looking at it and seeing the little vibrations, the sound of it was almost completely silent.

What the fuck, he thought, the car wasn’t running? It didn’t have any keys, and they definitely weren’t in the ignition, right? He scrambled over to the driver side and pushed his head through the shattered window. No, yeah, he was right, there was no evidence of keys in sight. Raoul stepped back, a twinge of fear running through his veins, but not enough to stop him from circling back towards the engine.

Unsure of the fact that nothing was going to jump out at him, but still wanting to get a closer look at the strange machinery, he peered deeper into the engine. It seemed like everything was ok? Like compared to the outside frame, the innards were in far better shape. The only thing that was badly damaged was a couple of high-tech, computer-like circuit boards, a thick red wire bundle near the back, and now that he looked a little closer it seemed like some of the strange metal contraptions on the far right side seemed dented and — ew, yeah, that one weird metal orb looking thing was leaking. It looked like it was cut when whatever damaged the hood split it in half. The wire bundle was sparking like it was trying it's hardest to be a Fourth Of July sparkler and Raoul knew he needed to deal with it first. Looking around he actually found the other half of the thick wire, and after making sure to have some rubber gloves, pliers, and electrical tape, and his toolbox stand nearby, he patched it up together in a few tense minutes.

He paused for a breath when he was done, expecting something to happen, and he still almost leapt through his own skin when the car gave a rumbling rev of it's engine. What the fuck he thought for sure the car was off, unless all this glowing blue shit meant that it was on—

“Ah, that is _so_ much better, thank you _very_ much.” The hood slammed itself shut and Raoul yelped as he stumbled back. “Really, I _do_ thank you for fixing that little mishap, but I really do not appreciate your little disgusting organic paws in my interior anymore, so if you don't mind...” The car gave a threatening rev and Raoul fell back onto his toolbox and in his haste to get away he managed to grab the biggest hammer he had from the fallen mess.

“What is happening right now?” The latino whispered, shocked and honestly afraid. His heart felt like it stopped as soon as the-the _car_ started talking and honestly he knew there were technological marvels out there but a talking car that could move on its own was a little too much for him. He didn’t feel himself sliding down to his knees (a safe five meters away, mind you), hands tightly gripping the hammer as if it was his only line of defence, which it might as well be since the car was moving--! 

In a quick flash of screeching metal and whirling gears the car in front of him spun in a graceful twirl until it unfolded into a giant, uh, robot looking thing. It almost reminded Raoul of those weird Japanese cartoons his younger sister used to watch, where pilots would fight in huge robotic suits with swords. A little hysterically, his mind started to remind him of every time he teased his sister over her anime shows and that this was karma. 

The metal creature- monster?- in front of him gave an appreciative hum as it stretched it's arms out in front of it, talon-like fingertips barely scraping against the wall above Raoul. Gears ground together and something popped but the robot-monster gave another hum sounding pleased, stooped over slightly as it was too large to stand to full height in the garage. Raoul had never felt so small realizing this, or well he would if he could get his brain to work again.

The strange car-turned-robot settled into a crouch and Raoul's lizard brain went wild as it read the movement as a predator ready to pounce. A large, rich red humanoid looking face swung towards Raoul. It's brilliant blue eyes were angled, and when paired with the smooth, malleable metal that made up it's face, it almost gave the appearance of a young Asian man, Raoul thought a little distantly. Suddenly something clicked in his mind and the man scrambled to his feet, pointing the hammer at the robot’s face with a bucketful of false bravado he didn’t feel. 

The robot blinked it's weird, glowing blue, glass eyes. “Well, now this is just rude.” It huffed.

“Ey! Shut up! What is going on! Why were you a car? Why are you a robot? What were you doing outside my apartment!” Raoul waved the hammer threateningly. The robot just rolled it’s glowing eyes at him.

“Really now, you can put down your ‘weapon,’" the robot voice was full of a haughty sneer, “not only is that not going to help you in any way, but I don’t actually have any desire to harm you.” The robot lifted a clawed hand and Raoul flinched, but the robot merely left it in the air palm open as if he was offering it for a handshake. “My designation is Tracks of the Crystal City Towers and I hail from the planet Cybertron. I came to your planet years ago with my two companions-- who have been separated from me in that fight I got into last night with some Decepticon scrapheaps. I am indebted to you for fixing the wire attached to my T-Cog, you saved me from a horrid fate stuck as an Earth car!” The robot’s platting shifted outward and rattled for a split second (Raoul flinched) before laying flat again.

Raoul spent a moment to actually take in what this rob- what Tracks looked like. The first thing he noticed was blue: the rich deep blue of the car paint job, but now spread all over the shifting metal parts that made up it’s body. The next thing he noticed were the twin cannons, or missiles, just resting on its shoulders- and wondered where they were hiding when it was in it's car shape. The last thing he noticed in his quick sweep was the two large white wing like things sprouting from his back. They didn’t look too far off from belonging on some weird type of small plane. 

He looked back up to the alien's face, seeing nothing but what he assumed was patience and honestly, then looked back down to the offered hand -- roughly the size of his whole torso, Raoul noticed with touch of apprehension. Then he hesitantly lowered the hammer and wrapped his free hand around one of the clawed fingers. I guess if the alien car was gonna kill him already it would have, Raoul though, feeling less guarded and on edge. 

“Name’s Raoul Esquivel," He added a cheeky grin to match the relieved one Tracks was giving him, “Now, what’s the chance of me getting my, what was it? ‘Grubby human paws’ back under your hood? There were a few cords that could use reattaching and I know I saw something leaking in there that I could patch up. You probably need all that fixed up before you go find your buddies.”

The giant red face split into a pleased grin, the blue eyes brightening with mirth, “I do suppose the chance would be high, however, if you promise to wash and buff out these horrid scratches marring my beautiful finish I might just let you. ”

“You add a nice joyride around town for an afternoon in your car mode and I’ll even throw in a free paint job and a wax!”

Tracks beamed. “You got yourself a deal, Raoul.”


	3. Getting fixed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raoul plays alien robot doctor and Tracks is useless but thankful

It took the rest of the day of tinkering, emergency patching, and tense welding but Raoul managed to fix what he thought was the most necessary of the damage. But really, fixing the damage wasn’t the hard part, it was trying to pry information of what he was fixing out of Tracks. The Cybertronian was absolutely clueless about the parts that made up his body. He knew what an energon line was; his transformation cog, seams, and panels; and where his spark chamber was, but he didn’t know how to fix any of it or what anything else was. 

“I’m not a medic Raoul, if I got damaged there would be mechs that could fix me, even during the war! Why in Primus’ name would I ever need to know these things until now?” Tracks was in his car form when he said this, his voice coming out of his car speakers, his headlights flashing in annoyance.

Raoul rolled his eyes, not that Tracks would see as the man was half in his hood. He yanked a kink out of a wire, ignoring the mech’s startled yelp. “You’re a soldier fighting in a million year ongoing war, and never, ever thought basic first aid would be a useful skill to have? Incredible.” The human muttered as he twisted the wires togethers and welded a cover over the exposed bits. 

Once everything under the hood was in a little better condition- well, the mechanical stuff at least, Raoul had no idea what to do with the high tech or glowing bits besides hoping for the best and cleaning them off- Raoul heaved a huge sigh and pushed his tray of tools to the side of the garage and collapsed onto a chair in the corner. It was well past sundown and Raoul had been working non-stop for over ten hours.

“I’m done for now, how does everything feel?” He called out, waving a limp hand towards the carformer. “Stretch a bit and see if anything feels off.”

Tracks gave a little humm and shut his hood with a delicate click. Raoul had to admit that he looked better. There were still gouges and missing paint, but almost everything along his transformation seams was more smooth. The damaged glass was cleared away and replaced with some spare parts or scratches filled in. The mech still looked like a mess, but a better mess than this morning. It showed as the sounds of the Cybertronian transforming into his mech form was a lot less grating and almost musical. 

After his transformation the mech just squatted there, eyes glazed over. Raoul was getting worried after a few minutes of silence when Tracks hummed again, sounding contemplative.

“Well, the diagnostic I just ran said that there _are_ slightly less imminent issues, and my transformation wasn’t as painful this time.” Tracks hummed thoughtfully as he rotated his joints and shifted his plating, but Raoul almost jumped out of his seat at the news.

“Diagnostic? You mean to tell me that you could have just _TOLD_ me what was wrong with you in the first place?!” He was pissed, hours of guessing would have been saved if Tracks just _told_ him what was wrong!

“Oh, please Raoul,” Tracks waved a hand at him, “I could have told you what was wrong, but I still wouldn’t know how to fix it or where the issue is on my body. For example, I have no idea where my “Cybertronian Life Force Identifier” is and I doubt you would either, honestly!” The blue bot frowned, “However, the diagnostic showed me that my fuel and coolant reserves are very low, I must have lost a lot in the fight. And I only have enough energon on me to hold off stasis for about an earth fortnight maximum.” The wings on his back fluttered, with annoyance or just Tracks testing them out, Raoul didn’t know. “But that is if I don’t do anything taxing, which means driving back to base is out of the question.”

Raoul frowned and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “If you don’t have enough juice to get yourself back to your friends, then what are you gonna do?”

Tracks fiddles with a loose panel on his arm with distaste, and studiously not making eye contact with the human across the room, “I _suppose _I’ll have to wait around here for them to locate me, and with my Identifier malfunctioning, who knows how long it will take.”__

__There was a stretch of silence as Raoul stared at the large robot, and Tracks’ plating began to shift even more while his wings twitched. He’s nervous, Raoul thought, and enjoyed the sight for a few more seconds before heaving a great sigh. “I guess you can chill with me until your friends find you.”_ _

__Tracks whirls around to face Raoul, a smile split across his face and eyes glowing, “ _Well_ , if you are making such a wonderful offer, it would be rude of me to decline! I’m quite sure it won’t take too long for them to find me though. Cliffjumper and I have been in the same social circles since the war started. It would disgrace him if our mutual friends find out he left me for dead.” Tracks moved a little closer to Raoul and gracefully tried to sit down without trying to squish anything or get even more dirty. “Arcee is an honourable and determined mech and will at least lead the search until there are more pressing matters to attend too. However, I have no doubt in my mind that either of them will ever stop looking until I’m found and then I’ll be out of your way and you can go back to living your thrilling and short organic life.” Tracks leaned down so his face was more on level with Raoul’s. The man just scrunched up his nose at the haughty tone the other was using. _ _

__“Well, I’m sure they’ll find you soon then.” Raoul slumped back into his chair, exhaustion burning in every fiber of his being, not only from the amount of work he’s done today but of the thought of entertaining this snobby, useless giant robot for God knows how long. A thought occurred to him just then, “Wait, you said your base was too far away with your fuel levels, how far away is it exactly?” The man squinted his eyes at Tracks, knowing he wasn’t going to like the answer._ _

__Tracks gave a sigh, the vents along his chest opening and expelling hot air, ruffling Raoul’s hair in the process, “It’s not really that far, just a few Earth day’s of travel. I could make it on a full tank and if my flight systems were properly functioning, but in my current state of disrepair I’m more likely to go into stasis halfway though and end up in some ditch.” The mech sighed again, ignoring Raoul’s glare as he had to fix his hair again. “I think the location is in the state you call Nevada, some old human war bunker I believe.”_ _

__“Nevada?” Raoul sat up a little straighter, “My family lives in Nevada,” he squinted again, “I can’t believe I’ve never even heard about you guys before, like no offence but you’re pretty hard to miss.”_ _

__Tracks rolled his eyes, his hand making a flippant gesture, “We are robots in _disguise_ , Raoul, I’m not surprised you’ve never heard of us. We are masters of blending in.” He gave a little rev of his engine as a reminder of his car mode, and Raoul almost felt sheepish._ _

__“Well whatever, I was just thinking, that if your friends don’t show up, we can somehow get you more of that energon fuel stuff or whatever, and drive you back. Cause I know the route from here to Nevada pretty well and could get you there in one piece.” He huffed and crossed his arms, slouching more into his chair._ _

__Tracks hummed but nodded, “I highly doubt it will come to that, but I’ll take you up on that offer nonetheless. Now, I believe I was promised a wax?” The smile was back in full force._ _

__Raoul groaned. “Tomorrow, after I finished fixing your outerhaul. And after I get a full night’s rest.” He stood up on stiff legs. “How about you give me that promised joyride and just drive me back to my apartment or the place I first found you?”_ _

__“I suppose I could,” Tracks pouted. “Let me just refuel a bit before we head out.” He then pulled a large blue glowing cube out of _somewhere_ -Raoul made a mental note to ask about _that_ later- and began to drink._ _

__“Great,” Raoul rolled his shoulders and finished tidying up, the quicker the place was back in order the quicker he could pass out._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welp, sorry this took so long to post, I started a summer job and have been too tired or busy to do anything when im not working.
> 
> hopefully the next chapter wont take so long to write, but it will most likely be posted either at the end of august or in sept after school starts
> 
> Like always, this is unedited so if you see a mistake please feel free to message me! Thanks for reading!


	4. Road Trip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tracks and Raoul go on a supply run

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I basically smushed together lore from IDW and my own head cannons about the series in this chapter, so sorry if u see something and go "??? where did this come from?"

There was something weird about sitting in the front seat of a car you weren’t driving. It almost felt rude in a way? Like, Raoul loved the image of himself wrapped up in his black leather jacket, windows all down, and the wind whipping his long hair around. It felt exhilarating. The image was topped off because he was behind the wheel of a pretty blue corvette. But, again, he wasn’t driving- Tracks was. And it felt strange to have the wheel turn under his fingers and the pedals press down without him moving a muscle. It made him feel like he should be sitting in the passenger seat. 

Instead he just sighed and slumped deeper into the driver’s seat, one arm reaching over to dangle out the window. The wind felt nice rushing over his fingers. He started to move his hand up and down, riding the air currents. God, car rides are so boring and Tracks had already banned him from picking the radio station or syncing his ipod to his speakers two hours into the drive. 

The bluetooth earpiece in his ear crackled to life, and Tracks’ voice spoke over the roaring wind. “If you’re tired, you can go to sleep. We’ll be at the mine in almost two hours, which is pretty good time considering the speed limits on this planet are _disgustingly_ slow.”

That had been an issue Raoul had to repeatedly nail into Tracks’ head the first few days they were cohabiting together. Speed limits needed to be followed or you will attract the attention of the local authorities. Which is a big no-no when you are trying to fly under the radar, _especially_ when you have a human in your front seat that will have to pay for the speeding ticket and have that record on their driver’s licence. Not to mention when that said human can’t afford to pay for a speeding ticket because all his spare money is going into finding parts and tools to fix the speeding alien-robot car. 

It had been two weeks since Raoul and Tracks met. That’s two whole weeks of maintenance, paranoia that someone would discover the robot who was terrible at being in disguise, and waiting for Tracks’ companions to show themselves.

But they didn’t.

And now, Tracks was almost out of his special fuel and had to get more or he’d _die_. Or well not die, Tracks said long-term stasis is more like a coma, and he could go for millennia in that state until he would finally offline. But he would still offline cause his friends ended up being no-shows and Raoul had no idea what this special fuel even looked like or how to acquire it to help him out if he does go into stasis. And the way Tracks was taking his friends not showing up? He seems like he would prefer going into his robot coma and dying alone far off into the future than being forgotten or left for dead now. 

Sure, Raoul had only been in Tracks’ company for half a month, but he picked up on some things. He knows that Tracks has some sort of abandonment issues. The bot insists he drives Raoul everywhere just so he can keep track of his organic friend, even bothering to wait outside in the parking lot of his work for eight hours. Alone, with no other company than broken down and non-living automobiles. He knows that has to be jarring because Tracks always sounded so relieved when it was time to go home. So Raoul decided to help him out a little by buying a bluetooth earbud that he wears all the time. Something that Tracks can connect too and talk to him all day or when they’re apart without it looking suspicious of a man talking to a car, or a car actually speaking. 

On a slightly less depressing note, he also noticed how Tracks is vainer than anyone he’s ever met or heard about. The bot can’t go one day without a wash and wax, and carries around a microfiber throw blanket to polish his finish when’s he’s idle. Annoyingly, the bot always swerves around any puddle on the road, and refuses to drive on anything that isn’t paved. He supposes today is an exception, as they are supposed to go to this “energon mine” deep in one of the Virginian mountains to get more fuel. Tracks said it would be dangerous, filled with Decepticons -those other alien robots that beat Tracks to hell and back- and guarded heavily. The Autobot originally didn’t want Raoul to come, for fear of his safety, but Raoul saw the look of panic on Tracks’ face about the idea of being alone in enemy territory. So he agreed to come, it’s not like he wasn’t already in danger by secretly housing the alien -both from his own government and this mysterious foreign enemy. 

Raoul huffed out another sigh, pulling his arm out of the open window and his other hand off the wheel and placed both into his lap. He tried to push himself deeper into the seat, and gave a startled gasp when Tracks automatically reclined the seat a little bit. 

The corvette laughed in his ear and he could feel the seats shake a little, reminding Raoul once again just how weird it was that he was _inside_ Tracks. “I’ll wake you up when we get close. Do try not to drool on my seats, the feel of your organic oral lubricant is quite revolting.” 

“Sure. Thanks, man.” Raoul gave his seatbelt a little pat and felt it tighten briefly in response. Raoul liked to think it was a type of hug, Tracks being a big softie and trying to recuperate human affection. With that, he shut his eyes.

It was a little hard to get his mind to quite. He was all geared up from the thought of going into danger, as well as what was going to happen after Tracks got enough fuel. He could drive back to his Autobot base thing in Nevada, he’d have enough fuel, probably. Like, yeah, he was still pretty damaged, but Tracks was insistent that his minor injuries would fix themselves with enough energon and that his team medic would be able to fix the worst when he got back. Raoul wasn’t so sure, as he had spent the first three days in the corvette’s company just attempting repairs on what seemed like every part of his body. Then over the next two weeks he did repairs every couple of days. Fixing a rattly joint here, loose plating there-- oh look, that weld was getting rusty, better scrape it off and slap on more anti-rusting gel! Raoul felt like he was logging in more hours doing personal maintenance and upkeep on Tracks then he was for his job. 

His friends had definitely noticed that Raoul wasn’t coming over to visit as much, or contributing to their group chat, and brushing off invitations to go out dancing. Poplock, who saw himself as a popular Youtube persona with over a million subscribers, was personally annoyed that Raoul no longer wanted to be a part of his weekly vlogs or guest appear on any of his dancing tutorials. Raoul guessed it was odd, as before Tracks showed up, he would spend most of his free time at his friend’s apartment, and often even offered to help practice a new dance or play back up dancer for his videos.

But Raoul couldn’t willingly put them in danger like this: hiding aliens from the government, allowing them to be apart of some weird alien war. Until now, nothing bad had come after him, but he knew that helping Tracks on an energon raid would put his face down as a threat or accomplice and he couldn’t put his friends in danger like that. 

Also Poplock recorded anything of interest and he didn’t want Tracks’ face all over the internet just for some views. Rocksteady he would trust if it didn’t mean keeping secrets from their other best friend-- that boy was weak when it came to his boyfriend.

Maybe after all this was solved and Tracks was back with his team he would tell them. Ask Tracks if it was ok to take them for a spin if he was ever back in New York. Yeah, he wouldn’t mind if Tracks came back. Maybe Raoul could act as their occasional human medic and help them hide for a night if needed. Get information or help in anyway a human might be needed. 

He’d like it if he and Tracks could stay friends. These past few weeks were some of the most exciting times he’s had. 

________

The sun was low in the horizon, which cast long, dark shadows over the bottom of the valley they were in. It made it almost impossible for Raoul to see, and it frightened him a little to be so far out of his element. Tall buildings with dark alleyways, loud noise, and the feeling of eyes watching you? Yeah sure he’s got that no problem, just an average night in the big city. The dark, wide open space of the desert with nothing but the stars and moon to light your way? Piece of cake, he grew up with that stuff. But the buzzing, moving shadows of a forest, with noise coming from every direction was eerie, too much like a horror movie for his liking.

It didn’t help that he couldn’t keep up with Tracks. The large robot somehow managing to step over the tall brush and twist through the gasps in the trees like he was flying, and it was ridiculous. His gait was stupidly large too, and oddly quiet. All while Raoul could hardly keep his own feet under himself. The dirt path they were following had rocks, branches, and very uneven ground that a robot the size of Tracks would hardly notice. But Raoul was stumbling, tripping, and cursing over the fact he couldn’t see and he was sure that out of the two of them he was making much more noise. After Raoul had tripped over a fallen branch for the third time, Tracks just gave a sigh, turned around, and lifted the human up onto his shoulder, telling him to hang on tight. 

The earpiece crackled, “I can not believe that you humans have not evolved to have night vision! It’s extremely impractical considering how long your planet stays in the dark, not to mention how many other predator species have it! I am _shocked_ at how long and well your species have adapted despite its _many_ flaws.” Tracks’ voice was grumpy and scathing. 

Raoul ducked his head to avoid a tree branch coming at his face. “Tell me about it.” He grumbled, “I didn’t ask to be this useless! I don’t even know why you’re bringing me into the mine, it’s not like I’ll be any help in a fight.”

Tracks twirled around a large oak tree, wings dipping behind his back and then fluttering back up, making a burst of cold wind sweep over Raoul’s back. “I _told_ you already, I need you close by incase we need to make a quick getaway. I can’t go looking for you or having you get taken or killed by some passing patrol.” 

The human frowned and clutched the metal of Tracks’ helm a little harder. He was nervous, not wanting to get in between a giant robot fight, especially since he’d seen the damage that these robots could deal. Like, he was still patching Tracks up from his wounds when they first met! But leaving Tracks alone didn’t feel right either, despite his earlier grumblings. He also knew how much Tracks didn’t want to be alone, especially in a fight. Not that Raoul would be able to be much help, but it seemed like his presence was more of a comfort than anything of physical support. So instead he stayed silent and looked around, hoping that he might catch a glimpse of anything alien and be of help.

They travelled in silence by foot for a few more minutes, then Tracks stopped just behind a row of trees and merely said, “We’re here.” 

‘Here’ was a large clearing with a cave opening near the back, with futuristic crates crowded around the entrance. There was a distant sound of drilling, high and echoing coming from the cave, making his skin crawl. Even though the opening was completely dark, Raoul could see that something was moving inside, which made his heart race and every animal instinct he had telling him to run away. 

Tracks just stepped closer to the edge of the tree line, his arms twisting and whirling until his one hand was gone and there was a light blue, glowing canon looking thing instead. “My energon blaster, standard weapon.” The earpiece whispered to him, making Raoul jump. “Raoul, I want you to crawl back and rest behind my helm and between by wings. I know it will be a little tight, but it’s the best position I can think of where you will be protected from the line of fire.”

Heart hammering in his chest, Raoul nodded, words fizzing out in his mouth. He shuffled around for a moment and Tracks raised his one hand as if to catch him if he fell. But Raoul managed to get into the spot, crouched a little so he could duck into the little alcove made by the solid piece of metal that covered both the wing joints on Tracks’ back and the top of his helm. It was a strange addition to the rest of Tracks’ sleek and curvy appearance, and the human asked him about it once during a maintenance session. Apparently it was a fashion statement from before the war, as a more boxy look was popular amongst the rich, but fell out of fashion as disquiet grew in the city-states. He never got it removed, despite being an outdated fashion accessory, because of how it added extra protection to the sensitive mechanics of his wing joints and his helm.

It now had the added bonus of being a nice human sized pocket. Once Raoul was settle reasonably comfortable, in an not-quite-a-squat pose with his one hand gripping the back of Track’s collar and one hand on his helm to steady himself he whispered, “Let’s get this over with”. 

Tracks continued walking towards the cave with a quick, confident stride. Raoul couldn’t see much with his vision mostly obscured by Tracks’ helm and the dark. He didn’t need to see a whole lot to hear that Tracks immediately blasted a hole through the Decepticon guard by the mine entrance. 

There was a flurry of noise, the sounds of tons of metal slamming against stone, the horrible smell of burning rubber and fresh ozone, and gargling static like a computer being drowned. “Five more Decepticon life signals in this area. This should be over soon, Raoul.” Tracks spoke aloud now, not caring about being over heard once the element of surprise wore off. 

“Yup, sure buddy. Just do what you need to do.” His voice sounded faint and distant even to his own ears, mind reeling. Someone, an alien robot, just died right in front of him and they were about to kill five more. Raoul didn’t know if he wanted to throw up or find something to punch to expel this dizzying energy. As Tracks broke off into a sprint he decided he wanted to throw up more as he was rocked by the motions.

The further they ran into the mine, the more the area became illuminated. These large blue crystals began to line the ceiling and the upper walls, and they gave off a soft but steady glow. The addition of light merely cast more shadows everywhere, making the area have an even more eerie atmosphere. 

“Hey! You can’t be he--” The robot that was standing at the end of a tunnel started raising a gun, but was cut off by Tracks blasting a hole through his head. The other robot was slowly sinking into the ground as they past by him. Raoul caught sight of electrical sparks flaring out from the wound, his eyes were wide and bile started to climb up his throat. Tracks had killed them so efficiently, coldly, and the thought made his heart beat erratically in his chest. His grip tightened on Tracks’ helm. Tracks’ wings gave a brief flutter and his steps stalled for a moment before he continued.

Once they reached the end of the tunnel, they turned left down a lower corridor. This opened up into a wide space, filled with the glowing crystals and several cavern entrances along the far side that would lead deeper into the mine. 

Tracks’ wrist made the whirring sound again, one Raoul linked with his transformations. Raoul peered around Tracks’ white helm and saw there was suddenly a smaller cannon popping up from his forearm. “I’m afraid I don’t know how my black beam gun effects organics within its range.” His voice was low, and there was a startled gasp coming from across the open space. “I’d advise you to shut your optics and cover your audials, Raoul.” 

The human quickly scrambled to do as he was told, and wavered a little as he no longer was able to hold onto Tracks for balance. He could still hear a voice, muffled, then static like a magnet going near a radio. It happened four more times before it went silent, and Tracks started to move. Raoul didn’t know he was shaking until Tracks lifted a hand to his side and started to pat his arm awkwardly. He opened his eyes and looked up at the hand, which froze at his movements. The hand flattened itself out, allowing him to come move onto it, which he did. Slowly, Raoul moved his hands away from his ears and shakily crawled onto the palm. He looked up at Tracks’ face and the robot looked heartbroken and regretful. 

“I’m really sorry Raoul, I shouldn’t have brought you here. I forgot you were a civilian and a raid is no adventure for you to come along with.” The robot sounded mournful. The patting returned, a single digit of Tracks’ hand would run up and down his back in an attempt at soothing the shaking human. “We don’t have much time. I used my black beam gun on the miners, which deactivates the optical and aduial sensors as well as vocal cords for a period of time, so it’ll be best if we hurry before it wears off.” With that Tracks started to walk towards one of the back entrances, stepping around one of the miners crawling on the floor to what it probably thought was safety. 

Raoul was fixated on the decepticon miners, “So, they aren’t dead? You aren’t going to kill them?” 

Tracks sighed, “No, well, I should because they will continue to mine resources for the Decepticon army and that won’t benefit the Autobot cause at all. However, even though they are drones, I suppose they are still civilians, and it doesn’t feel right.” The new cavern they were in was brightly lit, with a futuristic computer like console at the far back wall, with more of those large sci-fi crates all stacked by the walls. He moved his hand down to the lid of one of the crates for Raoul to hop onto, then went to open another nearby.

“Drones? What does that mean I thought they were, uh, Cybertronians like you?” Raoul leaned over to peer into the crate that Tracks had opened and saw it was filled with glowing blue liquid in glass cubes. The light that emitted from these cubes reflected off of the Cybertronian’s white helm and wings, washing him in a melancholy glow. 

Tracks gave a pleased hum as he pulled a cube out from the crate, sloshing the liquid inside around a bit before reaching in to grab a different one. “Not quite. They are Cybertronian in the sense that they were probably made on Cybertron, but they aren’t alive in the same sense that we are.” He began to pull cubes out and sliding them into his ‘subspace pockets’ which never really made any sense to Raoul except they were like a personal pocket dimension to store things. “Drones were created without sparks, which make us Cybertronians living beings. Hmm, beings with a ‘soul’ to put it in more human terms.” At that he turned to flash Raoul a smile and only turned back once he got a weak one in return. “Drones are really only sophisticated A.I systems designed for grunt work. Like mining, guard patrols, or clean up.”

Raoul frowned, mulling this information over. When Tracks killed the guards, they didn’t sound like they weren’t alive, and he was pretty sure one miner tried to beg for their life when they came in. “So even if they look, think, talk, and act like normal Cybertronians, they still aren’t alive?” 

Tracks’ mouth dipped at the corners, and he places aside a few cubes and grabbing some purplish coloured ones near the bottom before answering. “Yes. Drones were created after the Cold-Construct revolt. These bots were once thought to be like drones, not alive in the sense that forged or sparked bots are.” Raoul had no idea what any of that meant but he knew it was something important so he stayed quite. “After the revolt and it was proven that Cold-Constructs were in fact sentient and alive just as much as any other Cybertronian, there was huge backlash. Suddenly there was a shortage on goods as the demand for higher quality energon, for homes grew to accommodate these new citizens. There was more competition for jobs as well, since they had to be paid now and not used for slave labour, which pissed off a lot of business owners.”

“This isn’t even including the social unrest giving the Cold-Constructs rights brought. They were being treated like abominations by all religious factions and lower class by anyone with a voice. Many bots didn’t view them as really alive because they were mech-made, not made by Primus.” Tracks paused, staring down at his hands, lost in thought or maybe remembering something. The silence stretched on for a minute before he spoke again, “It was one of the causes of the Civil War. And there are plenty of good bots still being looked down upon because of how they were created, it’s not fair and you think we’d learn by now.” His fist clenched and Raoul felt his heart go out to him. Was Tracks a Cold-Construct? It felt rude to ask now.

After more silence, Raoul asked tentatively, “The Drones…?”

That seemed to snap Tracks out of his daze and he looked back at Raoul in surprise, like he forgot he was there for a moment. “Oh, yes, right!” He began to hastily shove more cubes into his subspace, not really looking at them like he was before. “Since the whole disaster with the Cold-Constructs, there was a test put in place. The Ambus Test, which would prove that one was sentient. This was used to get a lot of mechs proper rights, like the Disposables, Minicons, Symbiote, Mono-formers, and Beast-formers classes just to name a few. Drones, which were created by Shockwave during the late stages of the pre-War period, didn’t meet most of the requirements to be called ‘sentient.’ They are just fancy computer programs in Cybertronian mimicked bodies.”

Raoul sat with wide eyes, Tracks really seemed to know a lot about this. Which was surprising since most of the time Raoul asked a question about Cybertron, his people, or about his own body Tracks usually floundered. “So, they aren’t, alive, then?”

Tacks moved to open up another crate, so his back was to Raoul. “Yes, they aren’t alive. Think of them as a more advanced version of that A.I on your phone, Siri.” The bot’s wings gave a little flutter as he found something of interest in the crate and shoved more stuff into his subspace. “So you _really_ don’t need to worry about them Raoul. Drones were essentially created to be cannon fodder, and no one will be upset over their deactivation. Except that it meant that someone is stealing energon.”

With that Tracks stood up straight and walked back over to Raoul. He held out his hand and the man shakily stepped onto it again. Even though his mind was calming down after Tracks’ explanation, he still was shaky coming down from the adrenaline high and his legs left like jelly. Tracks just held Raoul close to his chest, his hand cupped a little as if to try and shield him from the drones still crawling on the floor in the main cavern. 

“I managed to get enough energon to last me several Earthen months, depending on how active my self repair still is.” There was a way his town seemed self-deprecating when he mentioned that. As if he knew that he was going to be burning a lot of energon. Raoul tried to take that as an offence to his mechanic skills but he was too wrung out to comment.

The trip back to the main road took a lot less time than it did to get to the mine. Maybe because Raoul wasn’t slowing him down this time. but it felt like before he could blink they were back on the road. Raoul in the front seat strapped in tightly and Tracks humming away to some song Raoul have never heard of before while speeding back to get on the highway. 

It was half an hour after they first got back onto the road that Raoul spoke up for the first time since the mine. “Hey, Tracks…”

He got an attentive humm in return so Raoul continued, “How come you don’t seem to know anything about yourself, but you can spew off this classist information? Like wouldn’t it be more important to know how to do basic repair and stuff?”

Tracks gave a scoff through the bluetooth and sped up a little bit. “I’m a Towers mech Raoul, which meant that I was once part of the elite ruling class on Cybertron. A mech of my standard would never have to worry about knowing _‘basic repair’_ or anything that I could pay someone to do for me!” Raoul rolling his eyes at the snooty tone the bot was using. “A mech of my standards only needed to know about the structures put in place that made me and my family as wealthy as we were so I could one day take my creators’ place as Senator and Council for the Prime. That and whatever socially acceptable hobby of my choosing I decided to pursue.” 

Tracks slowed down a bit here, and the seat belt seemed to loosen around Raoul’s chest. “ _Somebots_ didn’t appreciate the position they were in to change things and threw all their opportunities away for a frag and false idols.” Tracks sounded bitter at this, and Raoul wondered if he had over-stepped a boundary, but Tracks perked back up again. “Well, even though my class was a big reason why pre-war Cybertron was such a mess, many Towers mech are also responsible for big changes made towards equality amongst our people! Such as the Ambus Test I mentioned before, as well as many of the scientist and inventors between both fractions!”

Raoul mulled it over, “So before the war you studied the social classes of your society?”

Tracks gave a truly amused laugh at that. “Primus, no! Like I said, knowing how my society functioned and being up to date on what was going on politically as well as socially was very important for my day to day life. Knowing this information was like learning how to walk, I guess. Something you inherently know how to do, and was encouraged young to perfect it. I definitely didn’t _study_ it or pursued that as a career.” He continued to chucked at the mere thought. “I used to be one of Cybertron’s greatest fashion designers however! I also used to dabble in interior design as well, but I wasn’t as well known in that field sadly. Which is a damn shame because I was the one to design the Prime’s office aboard the Ark! Mechs used to travel from all over the planet, and from some of the colonies as well, just to have their detailing done by my servos for a gala or major event!”

Tracks honestly sounded very pleased with himself and Raoul couldn’t help the little, tired chuckle that slipped from his lips as the bot’s engine purred with pride at his boasting. He could see Tracks all shiny and preening as other robots flocked to shake his hand.

He couldn’t help but give a sad smile as Tracks continued to ramble about how great he was, and how popular he was before the war. A war that made an artist and designer kill without a second thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I'd like to apologize in advance if this seems out of character for Raoul, but it always bothered me that none of the humans on the show got upset at seeing creatures they saw as living sentient beings killing or getting killed. I feel like they would be in shock at least a little about how violent Transformers are, since they all grew up in quite areas.
> 
> ALSO THIS CHAPTER WAS LONG SORRY I just didn't know where to end it and had to nip it in the butt and post it, which is why the ending seems rushed a little. Also im still not used to writing dialogue so sorry if it seems stilted and Tracks is ranty


	5. Sharing is Caring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tracks explains on how living off the Cybertronian equivalent of Mcdonalds for months isn't totally the best idea but what can you do when youre living that broke bitch life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I've had this chapter mostly written for months, but needed to get off my butt and edit it

Winter was settling in and Raoul could hardly believe how fast the time went. The six months since he had met Tracks felt so much longer, the two had just clicked so fast and it really felt like he had known Tracks his whole life. 

Not only in the sense that he had begun to know a lot about the Cybertronian on a more physical level, and really Raoul felt like he could completely rebuild the mech like a puzzle if he needed to. Not that he knew what every part did or how to work them, but he was sure Tracks would still look the exact same if he ever needed to. 

But more importantly he had also learned a lot about the mech’s life, why he joined the war and about some of his friends. Summarizing millions of years of war and millions of years of life before the war was a heavy order to do in the span of a couple months. He knew that Tracks had a family, and that he wasn’t on best terms with them, that he managed to flee the destruction of his city from a “combiner” -which honestly sounded so cool- and how it felt to be “one of the last of his kind” 

“Really, Raoul, did you think a lot of nobles would survive Decepticon extermination? Once our shanix ran dry and we no longer held the privileges of our old status, old corpse colour himself ordered any nobel not of use to be culled.” Tracks had shivered, rattling his frame like he ran over a pot hole. They were on a quite highway, colourful leaves spilling all over the edges of the road and dotting the trees above. “The only nobles I can think of that are still alive on either side of the war are either under the Wing Commander’s order or high up in Autobot or Decepticon command.” He gave a thoughtful hum, “Actually, I think the only nobles on the Autobot side that are left are myself and Mirage. And both of us are considered special cases besides our castes.”

“Special cases?” Raoul thought about it, “Yeah, well you were on the Space Jesus’ team, right? You must have been important.” 

Tracks gave a small laugh. “He’s called a ‘Prime.’ Honestly Raoul, it’s so much easier to say than ‘Space Jesus.’” Raoul felt his lips curl up at the musical sound of Tracks’ laugh. “But, we are special cases! I am actually one of the few Autobots that can fly, and while my top speed can’t match a seeker’s, I can keep up with them just fine! Mirage, however, has an outlier ability which, as much as it pains me to admit, makes him a more valuable asset than myself.”

“What’s a outlier ability? Is it like those combiner guys you were talking about?” 

“Humm, not really. Well, I don’t actually know the science behind outlier abilities, so they could be? I just know that it’s bots with special abilities. Mirage, for example, can turn completely invisible to any optic sensors— even heat scans.”

Raoul sat up straighter, “What?! No way that’s so cool!” God, if Tracks could turn invisible that would be so helpful...

“Yes way.” There was a smile in Tracks’ tone and a little happy rev of his engine, “And because of that he managed to become the SIC for the Special Ops division. That and he’s a sneaky secretive fragger, who never shares the secret of how he gets his detailing so fine.” The last part was a heated grumble which just made Raoul laugh as they sped down the highway, fire coloured leaves dancing along the gravel behind them. 

In turn Tracks learned a lot about Raoul’s family as well. They would swap stories when they were stuck in traffic or on long car rides late at night. Hell, just two days ago they both returned from Canada on their second energon raid. 

This time Tracks refused to let Raoul come into the mine, for practical reasons he claimed, but Raoul knew it was because of how upset he got last time. After the first raid, Raoul had trouble sleeping, waking up at odd hours with his heart pounding in his chest. Whenever Tracks saw how tired he looked the next morning, he always looked guilty. Asking about his “recharge fluxes” in a snobby way that just sounded forced, like he was trying not to show he cared or some garbage like that. 

Anyway, the nightmares got better, but Tracks learned his lesson about letting a civilian see the “horrors of war” or whatever. So while Tracks was, swimming? Driving? He didn’t even know how Tracks got there. But while the big bot went to the island mine just off some small coastal town in News Brunswick, Raoul spent the crisp, quiet morning in a cafe updating his Instagram and face-timing with his younger brother Rafael, before school started. After that mood booster he then started a video call with Poplock and Rocksteady.

His friends really have been feeling the change of Tracks’ presence in Raoul’s life. They never really hung out anymore because Raoul was “too busy,” and when they did he felt like he couldn’t really relax because he was so worried about Tracks. Where he was, how he was feeling, or if the Decepticons found him while Raoul was gone and he was hurt again. It also hurt a lot to keep such an important secret from his friends. They could always tell he was hiding something when they talked, and Raoul was just counting down the days until they got tired of him and left. 

But that morning, they seemed almost determined at the end of the video call, like they were planning something and Raoul wasn’t sure if he was prepared for what it was. 

He didn’t have a lot of time to dwell on it though because Tracks’ voice crackled to life in his bluetooth telling him to get ready to run. He barely had enough time to slap some money down on the table for his coffee and open the cafe door before Tracks came peeling around the corner like a bat out of hell. After Raoul tumbled into the passenger seat he looked in the rearview mirror and found out why. 

Two sleek black and purple race cars were speeding after them. Raoul may not have seen very much in the mine the first time around, but he guessed that these guys were what those Decepticon drone would look like in their alternate forms.

It took almost an hour of a high speed chase through quite, winding, country roads before Tracks snarled, “Slag this,” through the car speakers and pulled a stunt right out of an action movie. 

Raoul was a little high off of adrenaline at the time, but he remembered that suddenly Tracks was airborne. Then Raoul was falling through empty air as the sounds of the mech’s transformation sequence rang in his ears along with two loud laser blasts. Before he hit the ground he was back in Tracks’ car form, in the driver seat this time, with Tracks buckling him up as they sped down the road. 

The time after that was a blur of excited yelling about how cool Tracks was, loud demands to tell him what happened, and pleased yet still prideful reassurances from Tracks that he only used his black bleam gun so no one was hurt too badly.

That was two days ago, and now Raoul finally managed to convince his boss to let him borrow the garage to tune up his car after hours. It was late, nearing ten o’clock, and there was no one around the old car lot to see if Tracks transformed into his mech shape for a few hours while Raoul did some maintenance. 

Tracks had popped a cube and was sitting with his legs splayed out in front of him and his back plating flaring out, humming happily at the stretch while he drank. Raoul had climbed up his back and was tinkering with the mechanics that are attached to his wings. It was always so weird to do maintenance when Tracks was in his mech form. He felt like he was rock climbing off of the kibble on his frame as much as he was fixing.

And Tracks really needed this check up. Most of his joints were a little creaky, needing to be oiled, and some of the paint along the edges of his plating were bubbling and warping which was odd. The blue priss was always taking care of his appearance, sometimes he’d just drop Raoul off at work just so he can find a nice secluded place to renew his wax and polish. Raoul was keenly aware of how often he did this cause it always put a dent in his budget. 

So this lack of care was definitely odd. Maybe it was because it was in a hard to reach spot it wasn’t getting enough attention? Or maybe it was some damage from the salt water during their last trip?

“Hey, Tracks, what’s up with your paint job here? It’s not looking as fresh as the rest of you.” He reached a hand out to brush over the ridges.

The wings flared and almost smacked Raoul off his perch. “What!? My paint is ruined?! Where!” A large clawed hand was suddenly probing around Raoul, and the man had to grab one claw tip and guide it to the damage. 

After a second Tracks just groaned and hissed something out in that synth sounding language of his. “This is just perfect, I knew this was going to happen. I should have just off-lined.” 

“Hey, buddy calm down! It’s just a little warping, I could fix it for you if you want, it’s no big deal!” Raoul patted the clawed hand in a calming gesture and started to climb down from his spot. 

Tracks sighed again, sounding as his whole world was ending. “No don’t bother, this isn’t something you can fix. And even if you did, it hardly would last long enough for your efforts to be worthwhile.” He glared at his cube of energon. “My body is just reacting to only drinking this slagged excuse for energon cycle after cycle. It was bound to happen.”

Raoul paused shifting around his tool box, and eyed his friend. “Whatta mean it was bound to happen? What’s wrong with your glowy stuff?” Did Tracks grab the wrong fuel? Or maybe it’s because the stuff was mined on Earth and he just wasn’t used to it here? 

The blue bot gave the cube a slow swirl, watching the particles inside the liquid dance around. He was quite for a moment, gathering his thoughts, before speaking. 

“I’m not used to this grade of fuel. It’s a lot lower than I need, and the refinement is shoddy, ensuring that other Earth metals and particles are most likely gunking up my fuel lines.” He sneered at this, as if it was the worst offence he’s ever been privy too. “I may not look it, but I am a flight-frame mech.” At this he wiggled his wings, and Raoul did remember briefly flying back during that chase in Canada, so he knew they weren’t just for show. “Meaning, I need more powerful energon than normal ground frames, and my body isn’t used to the terrible refinement of…” Here his whole face crumpled in disgust, “...Drone grade fuel. If it wouldn’t damage my dentas too much, I would be better off just eating the energon crystals raw.”

“You could just eat that crystal stuff?”

A snort, “I’m not that desperate yet.”

Raoul rolled his eyes and fastened his oil can to his belt along with some extra wrenches and started to climb back up Tracks’ back. The bot would shift some of his plating ahead of his hands to make sure the human would have a good grip, but mostly just sat still and fiddled with his cube. 

“So,” Raoul hummed, making sure he had a stable spot to stand on before he started to clean up some of the wing components, “Is this why you’re still sitting around here? Cause you don’t got enough proper fuel to get back to your home?” Raoul busied his hands on tightening a bolt. “Not that I don’t totally appreciate you here, but I’m sure you miss being home, yeah?”

He was quite for a second, the only sound he was making was the clinking of his claws against the sturdy glass-like material of the cube. “I don’t think I’d make it, honestly.” His voice was hushed, sounding almost ashamed. “I’m functional, but I’m still not fit for travel. My fuel gauge is almost always under half a tank, my thrusters are still shot so attempting any flying for longer than a klik is out of the question. Even if they weren’t, the power it would take to fly or drive across this continent would completely drain my tanks before I’d be halfway there.” There was another mournful sigh. Raoul gripped some of the back kibble harder as his back moved with the exvent. 

Raoul stayed silent for a while, letting the mech sulk for a bit. His mind was spinning with the new information he was given.

The latino tried his best not to look it, but he was incredibly smart for his age. His parents were both engineers, and raised him to think critically and be a problem solver. If he had the motivation, he could have easily gotten a dozen of scholarships that would have paid his way through the top universities in the country. Hell, just look at what his family was like: his oldest brother already had one PhD biochemistry and was gunning for his second in biophysical chemistry, his little sister was already one of the brightest computer animators at CalArts and she was only in her first year, and one of his younger brothers has been top of his class every year since he left for his fancy boarding school before Raoul left for New York. Hell, even his baby brother skipped a couple of grades and was in high school at almost ten years old.

In comparison, Raoul, from an outsider’s point of view, looked like the family disappointment. He passed all through high school with average grades, cause he honestly couldn’t have cared less, and mostly spent his energy and time on auto-shop class and his after school job at the town’s car repair shop. He got into fights a lot, wore clothing that made his teachers’ turn their noses up at him, branding him another delinquent— the bad egg of the Esquivel family legacy.

It’s why he left in the first place, tired of all the expectations put upon him based on his family’s legacy. He wanted to be his own person and do things that he enjoyed, that wouldn’t be looked down upon just cause it didn’t have anything to do with computers or other measures of academic value. And what he enjoyed, was working on cars. Most recently, it also included alien robotic medical practices, but cars were still the major theme here.

So, Raoul was hearing what Tracks was saying, and in his mind he was quickly coming up with ways to solve his problem. 

Tracks couldn’t get back home because he didn’t have enough fuel. Raoul personally knew that he was burning through more fuel lately because of all the injuries he would get from raiding the mines. Meaning that his body worked like a human’s when it got sick and kicked itself into high gear to repair itself. It probably didn’t help with all the driving they did around the mainland, and the island itself when Raoul was off work, but it seemed cruel to keep the big guy cooped up all the time. 

Raoul hummed, hands moving unconsciously as they worked along the mechanics of Tracks’ wings. If he could design a refinery, a way to purify the energon Tracks was getting even more, perhaps even make it automatic, they could fix this fuel shortage he was going through.

While he was at it, he should look into a way to try and clean out his fuelling system, if it was causing problems too. He could probably take it out and manually clean it, but Tracks would have to be offline in that “stasis mode” he talked about, and it didn’t sound pleasant. 

Tracks talked about how bots of his status would often change their entire frames and reformat their alt modes too, just for kicks. So he knew that he could replace the parts if needed, but the problem would be how his frame would take to Earth metals. If his body did work like a human’s did, it would be like integrating a new organ, which could be tricky to get the body to accept the foreign presence. Maybe he could start by removing small pieces and cleaning what he could instead of removing the whole thing? That might work, it would be best to handle the cleaning out portion first before they tried the refining experi—

His cell rang on the table where he left his leather jacket and startled Raoul out of his thoughts. He jumped, and accidentally spilled extra oil all over his hands, where was apparently oiling transformation joints on autopilot. This made him lose his grip on Tracks’ kibble and, with a swear, fall backwards off the bot’s back.

It wasn’t a long fall, so it shouldn’t hurt too much when he hit the ground. He shut his eyes, bracing for the impact.

Instead, he had the wind knocked slightly out of his chest as he was caught in Tracks’ big, clawed hand.

“Careful now, Raoul. You may know how to fix me up, but I definitely can’t return the favour.” The autobot sounded chiding, but he had a soft smile on his lips. He brought the man over to where his phone was still ringing. He let Raoul slid out of his hand with an embarrassed thanks, his claw tips lingering a moment too long on his back as they made sure he was steady.

Raoul just snapped his Nokia slide phone up and answered, not bothering too look at the caller ID, as he knew the personalized ringtone.

“¿Qué onda, wey?” 

“Eyyy, Raoul! Mi amigo, where are you!” Raoul gave a bark of laughter at hearing Poplock’s terrible Spanish accent. He’s known the man for years, and while he tried so hard to learn Raoul’s native language, he always managed to make it sound so white.

“We checked out your place and your very attractive and very single neighbour told us you haven't been home all day! Are you still at work?” Rocksteady’s voice sounded a little more distant, but still pretty clear through the phone.

“Do you guys have me on speaker? And what the hell were you two losers doing at my place?   
¡No seas gacho! I don’t go to your guys’ place and start chatting up your neighbours!” Raoul felt himself flush in embarrassment. They probably were talking with that chick in the apartment across from him, Alice or something. She always seemed to be leaving her place as he was getting in, and always tried to hold a conversation with him or tired to invite him in. Of course she would know that he wasn’t home yet.

“Puh-lease, you wish you could afford our apartment, your’s is so trashy it doesn’t even have a doorman or main door locks. We literally could have broken into your place and no one would know besides your cute neighbour.” Poplock snorted. “Also I’m driving, so of course you’re on speaker.”

Raoul felt himself groan. He didn’t know why he was surprised, his friends always had him on speaker, just so they could roast him tag team style. 

He startled when he felt Tracks’ claw tips brush through his hair. He turned to look at the mech in question, and saw his ruddy face was soft with amused contentment. His lips moved, mouthing the words “your apartment is garbage.” Raoul pulled a face at that. Being bullied on all sides. Where was the loyalty?

He huffed, “Well, sorry we’re not all a famous Youtuber with a boyfriend that works at a big important dancing school to help pay for rent in a fancy apartment complex with things like ‘security’ and ‘working elevators.’”

His friends erupted into laughter on their side of the phone and Raoul smiled to himself. Tracks continued to run his claw tips through his hair, pulling strands out from his ponytail. He swatted at the big hand, shooing him away and jamming his phone between his ear and shoulder to fix his hair. 

“Buddy!” Rocksteady cut in again, “If you just sucked up that damn pride of yours, you could have those things too! I don’t know why you didn’t want to room with us anymore. Then only to move into that dump!”

“Hey, that’s my dump your talking about! Its got my name on the lease and everything!” He heard Rocksteady snort in disgust, but ignored it. “Anyway, what’s up guys? Why’d ‘ya stop at my place? It’s pretty late for a social call on a,” he paused, “weekday?” 

Tracks gave up fiddling with his human’s appearance after another swat and decided to go back to his drink, just smiling and watching the human banter with his friends. He knew it was a little petty, but he hoped Raoul would hang up soon so he could go back to focusing on him again.

“Bro, amigo, it’s friday night! We’re gonna hit the town, go dancing down at that new club on the island, and we’re bringing your workaholic ass out with us!” Poplock crowed, and his boyfriend cheered in the seat beside him. Raoul grimaced and pulled his phone away from his ear at the volume.

“Guys, I’d love too, but I really—“

“No, we’ve been hearing you flake on us way too much lately! You’re working too hard! We hardly see you anymore, and you honestly need the break!” Raoul had his head buried in his hands, so he missed Tracks’ head snap up and look out the garage windows at the faint sound of a too close engine. A sound which was covered by Raoul whining.

“No really, guys I’m super busy working on that personal project I mentioned. Revamping that classic car my boss let me have? Remember? I think if I just fix it up a little more, he’ll be show ready!” The lie he made up for Tracks fell easily off his tongue. It was an excuse to explain why he suddenly had a killer car, and why he spent so much time fixing it.

Behind him, Tracks slowly recapped and sub-spaced his energon, staring out the windows with a cat-like stillness. He dimmed all his bio-lights and optics, quietly shifting into a crouch, ready to either defend his human from late night robbers or fold into his alt mode. There was a flash across his optics as headlights from outside were killed. He tilted his helm as he saw who was outside. A brief smile flashed across his face as he glanced over at Raoul quickly, before shifting back into a focused mask.

“No, you listen here, Mr. ‘Work-Myself-Into-An-Early-Grave-Over-A-Car.’ You have to come out! We aren’t listening to a word otherwise!” Poplock sounded smug, and Raoul lifted his head and squinted his eyes in suspicion. Did the car engine turn off or did he take him off speaker?

“What are you doing? Where are you?” Raoul turned around and widened his eyes at Tracks, who was crouched towards the door, a clawed hand raised as if was going to strike at whatever came through it. A chill ran down his spine at the calculated stillness in the bot, getting a flashback to the mine raid. He held himself in the same stillness before he shot a hole through those decepticons’ heads. 

There was the crunch of gravel, coming from outside and through the speaker on his phone. Raoul’s eyes widened and he leaped forward.

“NO! Wait Stop!” He cried, just as the door swung open and his friends burst through.

“‘Cause we’re hereeeeaaAAHHHHGH” Poplock skidded to a stop in the entryway, Rocksteady gripping his jacket as he bumped into him, and they both screamed in fear at the sight of Tracks. Who still had his claws up, frozen at Raoul’s cry. 

The mech smirked, his pointed fangs making an appearance, he leaned in a little closer. “Boo.” 

The two humans shrieked and scrambled at each other, both trying to shield the other from the giant robot. The asshole robot in question just chuckled and leaned away, optics glittering in amusement.

“Tracks!! What the hell man?! When did we skip the disguise part and jump right into ‘no witnesses’ part of ‘Robots in disguise’?” Raoul skidded to a stop in-between his friends, arms splayed out as if to body block for his two shell shocked human friends.

Tracks flexed his claws and settled back down into his relaxed position, un-subspacing his energon cube. “I thought they might have been robbers, I wasn’t going to just sit here and let you get mugged.” He sniffed and took a sip of his fuel.

Raoul squinted at him, not believing that for a moment. He pointed a finger at him accusingly, “Bullshit! You can hear like, way better than I can! You would have been able to hear their voices and known who it was! You scared them on purpose!” 

Tracks sniffed again, feigning snobby indifference, and chose to take another sip of energon instead of answering. 

“Raoul…” Rocksteady whispered, he had moved so his boyfriend was safely behind him. “What the hell is going on, man?”

The latino gave a frustrated sigh, snapping his phone shut and pinching the bridge of his nose. “That, pile of jealous blue scrap metal is Tracks. An alien, robot soldier from some distant planet.” He ignored the light tug on his ponytail and frown from said alien robot for the name calling. “And my car.”

There was a beat of silence, and both his human friends turned to look at him with wide eyes. 

“THAT’S YOUR CAR?!”

“WHAT THE HELL, RAOUL? You’re hiding an alien!? We thought you were hiding a girlfriend!”

Raoul sputtered, “¡No mames! Why would I hide a girlfriend?!”

“I don’t know? Maybe you we’re embarrassed about us?”

“…What? Why would I ever be embarrassed about you two? We’re the Bop Crew, yeah?”

Poplock sniffed, “Well it hasn’t felt like it lately. But I guess it's understandable or whatever. I mean, hiding a giant alien in New York seems pretty time consuming.” He eyed Tracks, who just smirked and wiggled his claws at the humans. 

“And stressful,” Rocksteady added, relaxing a little bit, but still eyeing the claws wearily.

Raoul sighed, “Sorry guys, it wasn’t my secret to tell.” He shot a cool glare over at Tracks, “It was that fresa máquina. And he decided to let me know he was ok with sharing in the worst way possible.”

Tracks smiled, flashing his teeth in what almost looked like an animal baring its fangs. “I got tired of being the other mech in this situation. I wanted to meet the humans that Raoul spends so much time with. He’s told me lots of stories about you two, about how you two are upcoming film stars! How exciting, my carrier was also part of the entertainment business, for modelling however, one just cannot beat fine Vosian framework when it comes to looks." His own wings fluttered a little, drawing their eyes up to the appendages. 

He sounded smug, prissy, as if he was one upping the humans somehow. Raoul narrowed his eyes and walked over too the toolbox to clean up the mess, ignoring his terrible life choices of letting this bot into his life. 

"I’ve been dying to meet you both, see if the stories hold up, and all that. But, I guess I’m still a little high strung from the fight a couple of cycles ago.” He shrugged, wings sagging in feigned sorrow. He held out a claw towards the other humans. “My designation is Tracks of the Crystal City Towers, and it is wonderful to finally meet you both. I’m terribly sorry of my unseemly appearance, Raoul was just in the middle of a maintenance checkup when he got a call.” 

Raoul gave a huff as his friends nervously reached out to shake the Cybertronian’s hand and introduce themselves. Yeah, a checkup that wasn’t ending in a wax and buff, not after that stunt. He ignored Tracks' boasting as he answered questions, knowing his friends would be safe. As he tidied up, he started to mentally plan blueprints for that refiner and making a mental list for what he would need. At least now he wouldn't have to dance around his friends anymore.

He looked up to see Poplock had that look in his eyes, the one that said he had new inspiration for a video. Raoul gave a smirk, this might be a good thing. Now he might have more people to keep Tracks busy while he worked. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tracks doesn't like to share his favourite ppl, something that I'll explain later :P
> 
> Also im basing this in 2010, since the movie aired in 2013 and its only been one really long year for Team Prime since the start of the show (at least in my eyes) So having Poplock be a Youtuber is totally valid, hes not like MEGA popular, maybe 2 mill subs? but ppl like the skits he does, and the "How-To" dancing tutorials he and his boyfriend do. Sometimes he bullies Raoul into being in a few videos instead of helping him edit, mostly for the vlogs though, and the fans call him "ponytail"


	6. Gift Giving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tracks and Raoul head back to Nevada.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to sprinkle in more spanish, but im having trouble remembering my grade 10 language class lmao so please correct me or tell me if it's weird and I should stop
> 
> Also heres some images to help you know what Tracks looks like: http://leojmaloney.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/maxresdefault.jpg  
> http://bestcarmag.com/sites/default/files/653371852054258.jpg
> 
> And heres a little age list from my notes for everyone  
> 2010/2011  
> Antonio= 24 (working on his second PHD)  
> Raoul= 19(living in New york for his second year)  
> Pilar=17 (first year at uni)  
> Miguel=11 (at a gifted boarding school, 2nd year)  
> Raf=9/10 (birthday 5th march, grade 9)  
> Rocksteady/Poplock= 20/21

The cell phone rang on the table across the room, the ring tone light and cheery and Raoul gave a grunt of effort as he pulled himself out of the mangled mass of wires and machinery in the centre of the room. He managed to free a hand to hit the talk button on his bluetooth.

“¿Qué tal, hermanito?” Raoul shoved his hand back in mess, twisting some wires together with a pair of pliers.

“Hey Raoul! Just calling to make sure you’re gonna be home this weekend! I know you said you would be, but I just wanted to make sure nothing came up? I mean, it’s ok if you can’t, I know how busy you are, and driving across the country is a really long trip but--”

Raoul laughed, “Hey calm down, Raf! I told you I would be there, and there is no way I’m gonna miss my baby brother’s tenth birthday! A whole decade! That’s something worth celebrating, and I wouldn’t miss it for the world!” 

He heard Raf give a soft sigh of relief. His little brother worried too much, too much like their older brother Antonio, Raoul mused to himself. He began to wrap the exposed wires with electrical tape, mind already drifting away from the conversation and back onto his work. 

He was currently working on a prototype for that energon filter he thought of a few months ago. Being at the auto-shop let him have access to a lot of tools he didn’t have at home, as well as having more open spaces to show Tracks his progress and getting his, extremely limited and useless, feedback. Besides, it was a slow day at work. They only had one customer and it was for pick up. Both he and Old Man Sparkplug spent all morning cleaning up the shop, organizing, and waiting for people to walk in. Now that everything was done except for waiting, Sparkplug waved Raoul off, letting him use the spare garage for “tinkering with that dohicky you’re makin.” 

Sometimes Raoul thinks Sparkplug was too damn lax in letting him just do whatever he wants 90% of the time and still give him a full paycheck with tips at the end of the week. But, he’s not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially when he struggled to pay his rent most months, and just thanks the old man anyway.

It took a lot of math-- a lot of phone calls with his brother Antonio about some of the science needed-- but he thinks he’s onto something here. It’s nowhere near being useable, but Tracks was very impressed with his efforts so far and is always encouraging him to continue. Something that makes Raoul’s heart flutter in his chest just thinking about those warm smiles and how nice his big metal friend sounds showering praise on someone that isn’t himself.

“I know you said you’d make it, but it’s just I haven’t seen you in so long! You didn’t make it back for christmas, and that’s christmas!” Raf stress out the word, as if trying to push exactly how weird it would be for his big brother to visit for his birthday and not a major holiday.

Raoul cursed inwardly and felt a little guilty. He got what Raf was saying, and the little guy had every right to be suspicious of Raoul’s motives, cause, well… Visiting home for his birthday wasn’t the real reason the mechanic was coming back, just a convenient one. 

See, Tracks finally deemed himself sufficiently fixed enough to travel across country. His self-repair decided it fixed most of the pressing issues two weeks ago, so it didn’t take up so much of his fuel reserves anymore. Not to mention that over the holiday season, with the help of his friends, Raoul managed to figure out how to do basic repair on planes. On top of taking more shifts at work. A process that involved a lot of sleepless nights and maybe more than one mental breakdown. However, all the hard work paid off and he managed to patch some of the major issues Tracks had with his flight mode, which really helped to cut back on the work for his self-repair. After a very grateful thank you, he spent the weirdest afternoon of his life watching a car with wings fly around in an empty field. So now that the mech was as fixed as he was getting by a clueless human medic, the duo spent the last week prepping for the trip, and on the weekend, going on a small energon raid. 

They went back down south and hit the first mine they raided almost a year ago, and this time they brought Rocksteady’s truck. With his friends waiting as far into the forest as they could, Tracks managed to unload raw crystals and some cubes to hide under a tarp on the flatbed and go back to store more of the liquid stuff in his weird space pocket. It also gave Tracks the excuse to leave Raoul behind again, so he could “help your little organic friends with being lookouts, they won’t know what to look for unlike you.”

Nothing really eventful happened, just Tracks emerging each time looking a little more scorched and dusty than he did before. Poplock and Rocksteady thought the whole thing was pretty boring overall, since most of it was spent driving. They much preferred to help entertain Tracks during the day while Raoul was at work. Taking him for joy rides, sightseeing, and letting him be a part of their Youtube sketches as “special effects” and doing voice overs.

“Eyy, Raf, you know how bad I feel about being a no-show. ‘Toni already gave me a hard time about it over the phone last time we talked.” Raoul gave a grunt as he tried to tighten a screw a little more. “I swear that I’ll see you in a bit Raf. I’m not gonna flake this time, promise.” There was a sound of an engine outside and Raoul looked up on instinct. “Ah, shi--oot, I got a customer, I’ll call you back later, kid ok? And I’ll see you real soon, kay?.”

“Okay, bye Raoul. I’ll see you soon.” The kid sounded a little hopeful, but mostly like he was trying not to sound too upset. 

Raoul frowned as he hung up and untangled himself from his prototype. He knew how much the little guy looked up to him-- God knows why-- and guess he really did hurt him a lot more than he thought he did by putting his family at more of a distance. 

The latino shrugged, it’ll probably be fine. Tracks was gonna be with his team in a couple of days, and Raoul can go back to his old life.

He just ignored the knot of unease sitting in his gut at that thought as he left to greet the new customer. Things would sort themselves out, he was sure of it.

__________

That unpleasant knot hadn’t faded with time, and in fact, as Tracks was driving them towards the dusty roads of his home town, Raoul almost felt like he was going to vomit.

It had nothing to do with the drive over, Tracks was a smooth ride as always. The two day trip mostly passed in a blur of sleep, laughter, and arguing over what music to play to pass the time. 

Now that they were minutes from home, hours from having Tracks leave for good, Raoul wished that drive was even longer. 

“Remember to ask your family if they liked the new Bop Crew videos on Youtube, I want their opinions on my acting abilities. Oh! And remember to give them the gifts I picked out. Maybe have them open them near a window, I’d like to see their reactions. The concept of giving gifts because of a celebration instead of vying for increased status is so _novel_.” 

“And I keep telling you, this is for Raf’s birthday. So only he’s supposed to get gifts.” A pause, “How did you even buy the gifts anyway? I didn’t give you the money. Are you borrowing from Rock and Pop now too?” 

“Oh _please_ , Raoul. It’s a gift for your family unit, you aren’t supposed to pay for it! And I have my ways. But honestly, how am I supposed to win over your family unit if I only give one of them a gift? It’s such a strange concept too. Back on Cybertron, if you wanted to gain the favour of any mech, you give gifts to those they shares a spark bond with as well! It not only shows how wealthy you are, but how willing you are to devote yourself to them and those closest to their spark! It shows how much you value their ties as well as your own.”

Rolling his eyes so hard his head moved a little with the action, Raoul huffed. “This isn’t some upper class powerplay, esé. It’s a birthday party for a ten year old. The day is supposed to be about him, so only he’s getting gifts.” Raoul thought about it for a minute, trying to find a way to explain this so Tracks could understand. “If you give other people gifts, it might look like … you don’t really care about him enough? Trying to upstage his big moment?” Yeah that might work.

Tracks actually gasped that that, his engine stuttering for a moment. “Why I would _never!_ ” He was silent for a minute, and Raoul thought the talk over. As he was fiddling with the radio, Tracks spoke up again. “What if you gave your other family unit members my gifts in secret? But add a little more fan fair for the sparkling's present?”

As he settled on a station, something classical that made Tracks hum in appreciation, Raoul thought, filing away the little timbits of alien culture and phrases. By now he was so used to Tracks’ weird habit of adding Cybertronian words and concepts into his daily vocab, even though Raoul was one hundred percent sure that the big guy fully knew what a “child” was.

He must be lonely, what with having most of his population and culture dead and scattered. So he must be clutching onto what little culture he had left, determined to share it and preserve it in such an alien environment-- to have and experience something familiar even if what’s around him is foreign. 

With all that in mind, Raoul huffed, “Yeah ok, if this is so important to you, I’ll make sure to give them their gifts. Especially where you can see their surprise.”

Like a pleased cat, Tracks rumbled his engine in a warm purr. Raoul smiled in fond exasperation at the dashboard. Honestly, how weird would it be for him to give his family members gifts from his “roommate” they’ve never met? Even Rocksteady and Poplock don’t give his family gifts and they’ve known about them for years. Hell, he’s pretty sure Pilar and her friends routinely watches their Youtube videos too.

They were almost at Raoul’s house by now, and he felt nervous. While he’s talked with his family a lot, he hasn’t seen them in person since he moved out. And his whole family was going to be here for Raf’s birthday weekend. While on the phone no one seemed to mind his life choices too much, he just _knew_ the fact that he still hadn’t applied to university would come up, or why he ‘wasn’t doing more with life.’

There would also be the fact that he would look like he’s selling his car too while in town. Driving into town with a fancy 1999 Corvette and then leaving on a one way flight to NYC? Suspicious, especially to someone like his mom who’s brother used to work for a gang in the 80’s by stealing cars and selling them for parts or fixing them up to sell on the black market. Well, before he got shot a little after ‘Toni was born. Raoul obviously never met the man, but his mother always liked to compare his ‘worrying life habits’ and love for cars to her late brother.

Which was always a fun time. Be careful doing that thing you love Raoul, you don’t wanna end up like my low life, dead, gangster brother. He may not be swimming in cash, but he wouldn’t stoop so low. Stealing car parts from abandoned cars no one was using? Sure, yeah, not too big of a deal, scavenging isn't the worst thing he's done to make ends meat. And Tracks was evidence of how that wasn't a completely, totally, awful thing to do. Joining a gang and working for the mob? Nope, nuh uh, not for him. Even scavengers have morals. 

Tracks turned down his old street and they could both see the colourful balloons tied to the mailbox at the end of the driveway. Tracks made a cooing sound as he saw a small boy in baggy clothes play with a little remote control Camaro on the sidewalk near the house. 

“Is that him? He’s so small! Were you ever so tiny Raoul?” The Corvette sounded delighted as they pull into the driveway. The boy looked up in shock at seeing such a nice car, confusion filtering across his face for a moment until he saw Raoul.

“Yup, it’s the birthday boy.” Raf had a smile that split his face in two, eyes shining behind is big glasses as they ogled the car, placing the remote control down on the grass. Raoul just chuckled and patted the wheel, letting his fingers drag along the leather for a moment before letting go and making the motions of turning off the engine. His other family members were coming out of the house, and he could hear them gasp at the sight of such a beautiful car. 

As stepped out of the driver’s seat, Raf launched himself at his older brother, making them both stumble back into the car. He could feel Tracks’ amusement even if the bot didn’t have a face like this.

“You’re here! You’re actually here! I’ve missed you so much Raoul!” The boy squeezed his sibling so hard, then squealed in delight as the elder scooped him up in his own bear hug, spinning them around before placing him on the ground.

“I told you I would be here, didn’t I?” He ruffled Raf’s hair as his other family members began to crowd around. 

Miguel, his second youngest brother, and who honestly was closer with Pilar than him, gasped. “Woah! Raoul where did _you_ get a car like that!”

“Yeah, like, did you steal your friends’ car just to show everyone up? That flame decal on the hood is just like the one on The Bop Crew’s videos.” Pilar gave him a punch on the arm, “‘Cause there is totally no way you could afford something as nice as _that_.” 

‘Toni frowned as he looked the car over, “Is this the one you mentioned that you were fixing up over the phone a few weeks back? How did you afford the parts?”

“Christ, I’m not even in the house yet! Can we all lay off the ‘Raoul’s a broke bitch’ shtick for a whole five minutes?” Tracks’ frame felt warm and comforting where he leaned against it for support, arms crossed and posture defensive.

He was saved by his mother parting his hoard of awful, terrible, totally unsupportive siblings like the Red Sea. “Oh, mi Chiquito!” She pulled him away from Tracks’ warmth and gave him a huge hug. “I’ve missed you so much mi changuito! Why don’t you visit more often! I hardly recognize your face!” Her voice sounded wobbly, like she was about to start crying and Raoul tensed up, wrapping his arms around her in a quick, tight embrace before pulling away slowly.

“Hola, ma, I missed you too.” He gave a shy, guilty smile. She pulled him away from Tracks even more to give him a once over.

“Look at you, still dressing up in your father’s old clothes.” She sniffed, patting his cheek, “And you look so thin, I hope you aren’t spending all your food money on car parts and gas. Skipping meals isn’t healthy, mijo.”

He didn’t need to see Tracks to know the bot stiffened a little at that implication, something that most likely didn’t even cross his mind. Car parts, carwashes, that big pile of polish the bot regularly went through, and not to mention renting a parking space close to his apartment for him did put a pretty big dent into his already very small budget. It was why Raoul had basically jumped on the chance to take more shifts at work this winter, almost forcing Tracks to hang out with Poplock and Rocksteady more. Cutting off the cable, heat and A/C, as well as living off of Ramen noodles for weeks once just to make rent was something he had to do early on when Tracks came into his life. 

Tracks once told him that he and his team were funded by the American government, and with his rich upbringing, Raoul wasn’t surprised to realize that he never wondered who was paying for all of his upkeep and stuff. And what corners would have been cut to make sure he still looked good.

Waving his mom’s hand away, he tried to comfort them both, “I’m fine ma, living on my own is just a little rough and work has been busy, you know how it is. Everything will be fine though, I’ll make sure to eat a little better when I get back.”

His father gave him a firm pat on his shoulder, giving him a loving but stern look. “You better. I’m not letting my son die alone from starvation halfway across the country. You are always welcome at home if things get really rough, you know that right?”

Bunching his shoulders up to his ears, he huffed and pulled away from his family, stalking over to Tracks’ trunk. “Dios mio, I’m not even in the house yet! Let’s have the whole neighbourhood know I’m doing such a bad job living on my own!” He tapped the trunk, and Tracks opened it, making sure his backpack and the small pile of gifts were out of his subpace. 

He started grabbing things to take out. “And if you _must_ know, I’m seeing a buyer for this car nearby before I leave. Fixed it up for my boss, and he asked to drive it out here and make the deal while I visit you guys.” After everything was out of the trunk he snapped it shut, maybe a little too forcefully in his annoyance. He gave Tracks frame an apology rub before slinging his backpack on and gathering the presents. “So yeah, you’re all right I’m too broke to afford a car like this, congrats on being better at me in life once again.” His parents and ‘Toni frowned but Pilar rolled her eyes at the dramatics while the youngest boys eyed the gifts. “Anyway, here, my roommate gave me gifts to give to you guys, small stuff I’m sure. I think yours is the big one though Raf, so help me bring this all in.”

Miguel quickly snatched a small wrapped box with his name on the tag. “Neat! Thanks!” The little brainiac looked like he was vibrating from the need to rip the wrapping off and see what was inside. 

Pilar gave her box a calculating look, “Why would your weirdo roommate Travis give _us_ gifts?” She gave the box a little shake.

Like the responsible oldest brother, ‘Toni took the packages marked for him and their parents, and handed Raf his present, finally freeing Raoul’s hands. But the little boy looked like he was struggling to hold the gift that was almost half his size. So Raoul gently grabbed it back, making sure it or Raf wouldn’t get damaged. 

“Nonetheless, we’ll have to call your roommate later to express our thanks, especially you Rafael. And Raoul? I want the address and phone number of whoever you’re meeting later for the car.” Their dad said, and began to herd his family inside. 

“Yes, papa.” Raf said obediently, scurrying over to pick up his toy car then sticking close to his brother’s side, clutching his toy Camaro to his chest, just happy Raoul was back for a little while. The rest of the siblings all mumbled an agreement.

Before the front door shut behind him, Raoul looked back to see Tracks had one headlight up and the other hidden away in his hood, making it look like the car was winking at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you notices any mistakes please tell me! Thanks again for reading <3


	7. Heading home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tracks and Raoul make it back to the Autobot base

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter and the last one were supposed to go together, but it was getting too long so I split it, and this one still ended up way too long anyway lmao. It's also unedited, so I'll be going over it tomorrow *peace sign*

To be truthful, Raoul was surprised at how thoughtful Tracks’ gifts were. Raoul still didn’t really understand why Tracks was so intent on giving them gifts, and why he clearly put so much effort into them, but his family loved them. And he took such obvious pride and joy from knowing he gave them such wonderful things. 

As they were driving away from his family home, he mused about the idea. Tracks never really showed that much interest in other human things or concepts. And was clearly jealous for Raoul’s attention when it came to his friends and his boss, so it was odd of him to put so much effort into another aspect that would take away his attention even more. Hell, he spent all night pretending to be a car, not moving in the driveway probably bored to tears as Raoul laughed and bonded with his family, warm and safe inside. The mech hardly even complained through the bluetooth either.

A thought came to mind, about what Tracks had said the day before when he was trying to convince Raoul the gift giving was important. A light heat rose to his cheeks before he waved the thought away. No, that was stupid and impossible. Tracks was an alien robot and he was just some runaway living in a shitty Bronx apartment. The bot was so vain that he would never be interested in anything, anyone, that wasn’t perfect. 

Maybe, maybe it was because it was a concept of family? He knew that Tracks had issues with his own family, and always ragged on Raoul to patch things up with his own siblings and parents. Hell, sometimes the bot even pretended to be his human roommate ‘Travis’ just to talk and bond with his siblings or to reassure his parents that, yes, Raoul was still indeed alive and well. 

Maybe it was because Tracks felt the need to be close with a kinda functioning family uint?

Raoul didn’t know the full story; Tracks was never comfortable talking about the family structure he was raised with. He always distracted Raoul with talk of his friends, or the autobots, or even flipped the question back over to Raoul’s own family. 

After all their talks, the man only knew that his mother figure --someone he called a ‘carrier’-- died with the fall of his city, and that he had a falling out with his twin and father figure-- his ‘sire’. No names or details given, just off handedly mentioned as if they no longer meant anything to him. Like they died with his mother. 

As they were finally driving out of the town, Raoul pressed his head back into his seat and remembered that scene from yesterday.

_______________

Once everyone was settled in the living room, Raoul had opened the living room window, tossed his backpack into his old bedroom while his mom had set out tea and snacks, his parents let Miguel open his gift first. Mainly cause the little snot was driving everyone crazy with how often ‘Toni had to tell him to stop trying to open it. 

Everyone was shocked to see a little Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figure set-- a set that the little brat has been bothering everyone about wanting. Something that Raf complained to Raoul a few weeks back while Tracks was driving him home from work, actually.

As everyone was distracted by the toy, Raoul whipped his head around to stare gobsmacked at the smug looking car, that was parked a _little_ closer to the window than he was when Raoul left him outside. The bluetooth, that Raoul honestly forgot he still had in, crackled to life.

“Now, I know that look. I told you that your family would like their gifts.” He sounded so smug and it took everything in Raoul’s being not to retort. “Am I good or am I good?”

Before he could do anything, Miguel gave a loud crow of delight and that seemed to snap his family out of their shock and all collectively look at their gifts in their laps. 

“Oh my god, Raoul! That roommate of your’s is the _best!_ ” He immediately started to open the package to get at the action figures. Tracks just made a smug, but please sound in his ear.

“I’m opening mine!” Pilar declared, already tearing off the pretty wrapping paper. She got a new airbrush pen, with three small jars of expensive paint. She gave a small gasp as she looked at the pen in closer detail. 

“Airbrush paint is the only way to paint. I was so disgusted to find out that your artists normally use the _hairs_ from other _organics_ for the medium! The fact that your sister enjoys this method just proves at how superior she is.” Tracks sniffed indignantly in his ear.

“Oh Dios…” She breathed, “He had it engraved... “ She looked up at Raoul, clutching the pen to her chest. “I can’t believe you told him I like Frida, and how did he know that this is my favourite quote?” 

“Uhh, yeah, I guess I talk about you guys a lot, no sé.” Raoul shrugged, honestly, he didn’t realize how much Tracks cared about his family. He clearly remembered minor details about them and things said in passing, which was wild to think about. He was a million year old alien, why would he be so invested in the short life of some human and its family? “What was the quote?”

She gave a sharp grin and brandished the pen so everyone could see. “‘I was born a bitch. I was born a painter.’ It’s my favourite Frida quote! I wanted to get it as a tattoo!”

“Pilar!” Their mom gave an angry shout, and started to scold her in rapid fire Spanish over how she was going to get a tattoo like that over her dead body. ‘Toni and their dad just looked tired, as if this was a recurring thing, but Miguel and Raoul burst into laughter. The former amused at the swearing, the latter just amused at how that was so Pilar to want that. Raf just sat on the floor, cross legged with his gift beside him, looking so happy and content with the bustle of his family.

The chuckling in his ear let Raoul know that Tracks was still listening to the conversation. “She posted a photo on facebook of a painting with that quote in Spanish in the caption, and with how you complained about her, I figured it would be appreciated.” 

“Oh buddy, I’m totally giving you a wax before we head out tomorrow morning. That was amazing.” Raoul whispered, still chuckling a little.

Once everyone settled down a few minutes later, ‘Toni opened his gift-- a small box with a gift card inside for an expensive restaurant in San Fran, where both he and Pilar went to school. ‘Toni just looked at it, confused.

This time, Raoul burst into laughter. “He didn’t!”

“Oh, I definitely did,” Tracks purred, “He’s a grown man and ok looking by human standards, he just needs a good push.”

“Raoul, what is this.” ‘Toni sounded tired.

The younger brother snickered, “I guess I complained to him a little too much about how you just need to man up and ask that Mikaela chick out--”

“Raoul! That was a private conversation! Travis has no business knowing about my love life!”

“More like ‘lack of love life.’” Pilar snorted, sipping on some tea. “I’ve seen you two around campus, she’s totally into you, but you’re too much of a nerd to do anything about it.” ‘Toni both looked indignant and like he wanted to crawl under the couch and die. 

“She does seem like such a lovely girl, mi hijo. Maybe this will give you a push to ask her out.” Their mother looked over to their dad. “What was it you said she studied?”

“A honours specialization in robotics, with a double minor in automotive and bioengineering. Isn't she doing her Master's in bioeng now?” Their father gave ‘Toni a teasing look. “A young girl that pretty and smart could have anyone she wants, son. You better make a move before she gets tired of waiting around.” 

‘Toni was red in the face and scowling at his family. He turned to the still snickering Raoul and through gritted teeth said, “Tell Travis, I said, _thank you so much._ ”

Raoul lost it, and so did Tracks through the earpiece. He was laughing so hard the latino was surprised to see that the mech’s frame wasn’t shaking.

His parents both opened their gifts-- a nice silver bracelet for his mother and a new leather journal for his father’s note keeping. Both items Raoul had mentioned off handedly wanting to get them for christmas last year. He ended up having to discard the idea when he realized he couldn’t make it home for the holidays and the shipping was too expensive. 

Finally it was Raf’s turn. Everyone looked at the boy, eager to see what was inside the large box. With the careful hand of someone not wanting to ruin the wrapping paper, he slowly opened the present. 

Everyone was shocked into silence again when they saw two little remote controlled race cars. One a dark blue with white racing stripes, and the other deep red with silver detailing on the front. Both clearly brand new, and very expensive looking.

Raf stared at them for a moment in shock, before he noticed a slip of paper taped onto the box. He picked it up and adjusted his glasses. 

“‘If you turn out like the other car lover I know, you’re going to do great things one day. Sincerely, Travis.” Raf looked up at Raoul, eyes wide.

“I mean it, you know.” Tracks voice caressed his ear, sending a shiver down Raoul’s spine. “You are an amazing human _Raoul_ , and so lucky to have such a bright young sparkling look up to you. Wars on my planet have been fought over who can influence the newest generation, and you gather their respect and adoration so easily. ” At that moment Raf rushed over to hug him, chanting ‘thank you thank you thank you’ over and over as if Raoul had any say in the gift.

The bot continued, “I’ve spoken to your family members, they call sometimes when you are asleep and I answered. Curiosity got the better of me, I apologize. The _stories_ Pilar and Miguel and Rafael had all told me of your youth. How you fight off bullies and became an idol to the sparklings in this town-- that is truly an admirable feat. You are someone that would fit effortlessly within the Autobot ranks if you were one of my kind.” 

Raoul hugged Raf back just as tight, burying his face into the kid’s mess of hair. Hiding the small tears prickling at the corners of his eyes.

“It gives me such pain that tomorrow we'll be parting ways. I just want you to know how valued you are.”

 _Me too_ , Raoul thought, _God, me too._

_______________________

“Shanix for your thoughts? Well I do admit, getting lost in thought over me is very understandable, your grip on my seatbelt is a tad tight.” Tracks’ voice purred over the speakers, snapping Raoul out of his thoughts. 

He looked down at his hands, and realized he was gripping tightly at the bot’s seatbelts, so hard his knuckles were turning white. He blinked rapidly, clearing the emotion that was misting his eyes and released the fabric. 

“It--it’s nothing, just thinking about the flight back. Never taken a real flight before, kinda nervous.” The review mirror angled itself as if it was peering directly at Raoul’s face. His damp eyes and tired face looked back at him, and Raoul grimaced at how much he looked like shit. So much for making good impressions for when he met Tracks’ team...

Thankfully, the mech let Raoul’s lie go without any fuss. They drove in silence for a little while longer, Tracks driving a little over the speed limit in his excitement to go home. Raoul stared out the window, for once not bothering to fiddle with the radio or get Tracks to connect with his iPod. Just staring at the vast emptiness of the desert. 

“You _know,_ ” Tracks began, his tone a little higher and his uppity drawl a little more pronounced than normal, which Raoul knew meant the mech was nervous. “I’m sure Ratchet, our medic, would be impress with your quick grasp of alien medical skills. You _are_ the main reason I’m still functioning after all.”

He shrugged, “It wasn’t that hard, since I knew how to basically build a car before you showed up. I just wish I could have done more, ‘ya know? I wanted to fix your fuel line issue, and I still haven’t figured out that energon purifier.”

The engine roared to life briefly, “ _Please_ , Raoul, knowing how to do either of those things takes a skilled medic and scientist _vorns_ of study. I mean no offence, but to learn out to recreate the procedures to do either of those, even _with_ Cybertronian technology, without the schematics would take a time period of twice your lifetimes. 

“I was just trying to say, that because of your honest brilliance, and eager ability to learn, I might be able to convince Ratchet to let you visit more often. Under the guise of medical training, of course.”

Blinking, Raoul sat up straighter. “You want me to stay? I thought you guys weren’t supposed to have exposure to human civilians?” 

“Well,” Tracks floundered for a moment, sounding flustered. “Well, you’re hardly a civilian by now, aren’t you? You’ve assisted me on raids several times, and patched me back up. If _anything_ I would classify you as a non-combat medic.”

Raoul smiled, folding his arms and resting them against the steering wheel. “Now, would your team be ok with that? You having you own, personal, ‘non-combat medic’?” He smiled at the stutter in Tracks’ engine, how his vents spun on, pushing out hot air. “Aww, are you embarrassed? Don’t worry, I doubt your team won’t tease you too much about having an organic friend. But I really doubt I’ll be allowed to stay. If the government is involved, I can honestly say they won’t want some punk ass Latino kid hanging around large, classified, aliens.” 

He heard Tracks mutter ‘friends’ under his breath before resetting his vocalizer, making a bunch of static fizzle out of the radio. “Now, we’ve had plenty of reasonable human lesions. While I admit, our newest one Fowler is quite the... grump, if you will… I’m sure he would see merit in letting a human that is already so exposed to our culture, war, and presence here on Earth, stick around a _little_ bit longer.” The bot sounded a little hopeful, like he was trying to convince Raoul to stay with him, as if Raoul would have any say.

The darkest parts of his mind told him that at worst, the government would shoot him right between his eyes just so they wouldn’t have to worry about him blabbering classified information. Or they might mind wipe him, like in the Men In Black movie-- make him completely forget Tracks and the past year, or lock him up in some remote base. He shivered, honestly, he didn’t know what sounded worse. But whatever happened, he knew the government wouldn’t let him stick around, and he just hoped Tracks would be smart enough to know not to mention who else he came in contact with. God forbid they do anything to his family or to his friends. 

“If they let me stick around, you’d never get rid of me big guy.” He ran a hand along the dash in a comforting motion and Tracks’ engine roared to life under his fingertips. 

____________________

Who woulda thought, giant alien robots, hiding in plain sight. Raoul gave a snort as they reached the base entrance. A door opened, and suddenly, they were in a long, tunnel. It was huge, it could easily have let Tracks stand to his full height, and then some.

As they sped down, lights flickered to life, illuminating the tunnel section right before they entered it. 

“That’s odd, normally the tunnel lights are always on.” Tracks sounded a little uneasy, cautious. He slowed down to almost a crawl as they turned a corner.

“Maybe they’re trying to save on electricity?”

“Humm, maybe. Be on guard though, we’re about to enter the main base.”

They turned another corner and there was nothing in front of them besides darkness, the tunnel ended into this open void. Tracks pulled to a stop, an after a few seconds of hesitation, unlocked the driver door. Raoul stepped out cautiously and Tracks did that graceful spin he always did when transforming into his mech form. He had his one hand transformed into a blaster.

“Lights on,” Tracks barked.

And suddenly, there was light.

Lights flickered on all over the walls and illuminated a large open space with several platforms. Big machines that looked like they could be high tech computers and blank screens scaled too Tracks’ size cluttered one section, a weird circular tunnel thing was on an opposite wall, and large hallways that lead into more darkness was along another wall. 

Raoul looked around, slightly impressed at how large everything was. He let out a low whistle, “Wow, I guessed it would have to be big so that several of you could move around, but this is really big!” He turned to look up at Tracks, who was standing stock still beside him. “Hey, does that hallway lead to bedroo-- …. Hey, buddy. What’s wrong?”

Tracks eyes were wide open, the lights flickering rapidly as he looked like he was both taking everything in at once and five seconds from a panic attack. His wings started to flutter nervously as he shot forward, ignoring Raoul completely. 

“No, no, no, no, no, they can’t be gone, I’m still _here_!” The bot basically threw himself at the largest computer looking thing, pointed claws taping away as he booted it up, His claws danced across the keyboard in a panicked rush. “I’m _still_ here! They wouldn’t just leave me _behind_ , Cliffjumper would _never_ , Ratchet would _never-- Optimus would never leave a soldier behind!_ ”

Raoul shrunk back a little at the angry tone and volume Tracks was taking. This frantic fear was scaring him a little. 

The computer beeped in denial and Tracks roared, slamming his fist onto the nearby platform, chittering in his native tongue in a fury Raoul hasn’t seen before. The man stumbled back a little at the action, eyes fixated on the large dent in the cement from Tracks' fist, tripping and falling backwards. He caught himself, and steadied himself with one hand on the floor. 

It felt weird. He brought his hand back up and saw that there was a thin film of dust coating the ground, and now his palm. He stared at in blankly, then it seemed to click.

Oh, fuck. Tracks got left behind. 

“Earth date: February 16th, year 2011.” A deep voice boomed from the high tech computer. There was a robotic face on the screen, with a soundwave moving to the voice beside the picture. He had a grey face and a blue helm. Raoul guessed it must have been Optimus Prime himself from what he knew from Tracks’ stories. 

The recording continued. “We have been on this planet for fourteen and a half local stellar rotations. In our entire habituation on this planet, the Decepticons have never been so silent, and Ratchet, along the crew have begun to worry. Our human companions say they have left this planet for good, but I am not so sure. One scientist has made note of vessel like crafts leaving this planet in max exodus just outside Earth’s atmosphere.” Tracks wings started to droop, and he stared unseeing at the computer keyboard. Raoul stood up and made his way over to his friend, careful not to get too close-- keeping out of stepping range.

“The largest batch was several months ago, yet still some vessels leave in fewer numbers in more sporadic times since. Arcee and Ratchet are convinced that the Decepticons are fleeing this planet, for whatever reason, which is why so little activity had be noted on surface. The team had come to a vote, and we are going to use our last intact ship and fly off world, see where these Decepticons are headed.

“Cliffjumper, a loyal and devoted friend, offered to remain behind. Still determined to uncover our fallen companion Tracks’ remains. The physical proof of his deactivation beyond the lack of CLF signal. However, once there appeared to be a downed ship located on the local moon, he agreed to come with us for support. We are all gearing up to leave planet tomo--” The message cut off. Tracks stood there, face blank, wings drooped to the lowest Raoul had ever seen, and a single clawed digit on the keyboard. Most likely shutting off the recording.

“... Tracks, are you ok?” What a stupid question, of course he wasn’t ok just look at him. Raoul wasn’t sure if robots could cry, but Tracks looked like he was trying his hardest not too. 

At the sound of his voice, the mech’s face crumbled up in distress, his wings twitching like they were exposed to live wire, and clawed hands grasping for _something_ he couldn’t reach. He crumpled to his knees, like a puppet with his strings cut, and let out the a wail that would haunt Raoul to the rest of his days. It sounded like nails on a chalkboard mixed with a broken wind chime and a backfiring car. 

Rearing back with hands clamped to his ears, Raoul stared in shock at his friend before him. 

The way he talked about his former team, Raoul had often wondered if the bot viewed the team he had before coming to Earth as almost a replacement for his family. A concept that was beginning to transfer over to this new team stationed on Earth. The stories Raoul heard about his friends could fill a book! Mirage and his conjunx Hound, two opposites in almost every way; Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, a pair of twins so close that Tracks sometimes felt jealous over what they had; Beachcomber, who honestly sounded like the most chill guy Raoul ever heard about and definitely wanted to meet one day-- and how Cliffjumper and his partner Arcee were the only remaining members from that team he had left. The last aspects of family Tracks had here.

He lost his family, forced to fend for himself. 

Again.

As the bot continued his grieving-- now more like the heaving gasps of a panic attack and a backfiring car than the high pitched wailing of before-- Raoul set himself into motion. He dashed over to the grieving bot, and with the confidence of someone who has spent countless times repeating a motion, he began to climb his friend’s plating.

It was harder now, as Tracks wasn’t staying stock still, so the threat of having his hands or feet squished between panels as the bot heaved tears was very real. But, Raoul didn’t seem to mind, just focused on scaling the bot’s body until he reached his face. Feet planted as firmly as they could on the top of his chest, Raoul gripped the vents on the side of his face with one hand and started to pat the mech’s cheek.

He dragged his hand along his cheek ridge, mumble singing the first song that came to his mind. After a few seconds the sounds stopped, Tracks’ eyes were screwed shut as he tried to calm down, his vents hiccoughing and engine stalling. After another minute he opened his eyes, almost going cross eyed as he stared at the little human standing so close to his nose.

He blinked, “... Are you really singing ‘Purple Rain’ to me right now?” His voice was brittle with static.

Raoul shrugged, continuing his petting motion, seeing Tracks tilt his head slightly into his hand, pushing it a little. “It’s a good song, you’re just weird for not liking Prince.”

Tracks gave a weak chuckle and moved to cup Raoul into his clawed hands, lifting him off his chest. He stood, glancing around the main room, looking as if he wasn’t taking anything in.

Raoul pressed a hand to the chest he was being held against, “Hey… Maybe we should see if they left anything useful behind? Stuff to bring back home? Unless you want to stay here…”

“No,” He sounded hollow, “No, I don’t think I’ll be staying here.” Without looking at the computer, he moved past it and into the darkened hallway. “The energon storage area and my berth room are down here…. I suppose we can see if they did leave anything.” The lights flickered to life as Tracks walked towards them. Motion sensored like the ones in the tunnel. “If they cleaned it out, I have some personal rations and vintages stored away in my room.”

The walk down the hall was kinda depressing. Tracks would point out things in a distant sounding voice, mentioning tales associated with empty rooms before cutting himself off and walking away, staring blankly ahead.

Raoul pressed himself into the bot’s chest, rubbing a hand along his clawed thumb, not really knowing how else to help.

Eventually they made it to the storage room, and surprisingly, there were several cubes left behind. These ones were a light blue, much brighter in colour than the ones Raoul had seen before. Tracks seemed to just stare down at them for a minute, before collecting them one by one to slip into his sub space. 

Once they were done, Tracks lead them back into the maze of hallways to another room, this one locked away behind a keypad. The code was entered and the doors swooshed open. Once the bot turned the lights on manually, Raoul was surprised to see how small it was. It was a bare room, with nothing but a large container off to one side and a large metal slab on the other. 

Tracks walked over and gently placed Raoul down onto the slab and began to rifle through the chest. 

The man looked around, strangely annoyed at how empty this place looked. “Was this your room?” It didn’t match at all with his vision of someone who bragged about being an interior designer.

Tracks gave a flat hum of confirmation, pulling out objects and slipping them into his subspace. “Yes, I suppose it’s a little drab. We never really used our habsuites for anything other than sleep and personal storage. So having it be a little simple is nothing really of importance. It’s just a room.” He turned to look at Raoul, that sad look still on his face. “We’re social creatures, Cybertronians. We prefer to be around others. In all the autobot bases, no one ever stayed isolated if they could, the common rooms were always bursting with mechs and always the first places to go if you were looking for someone.” He turned to look at his hands. “Even here on Earth, we all hung out together in the main rooms.” The silence dragged out as the bot was lost in thought.

He looked back at the container, then back at Raoul. “I think I’m packed, we can head back whenever your ready.”

“Woah there big guy. You’re not driving anywhere. You just had a major emotional thing happen to you, you shouldn’t get behind the wheel. Ah-- uh, I mean you aren’t in any position to drive. Can you even make it back to New York?”

The blue mech heaved a sigh, staring off into nothing. “I _suppose_ I could drink one of those cubes, that’ll have my fuel reserve up enough to get us back across country.”

“Yeah, ok, that’s a start. How about you start on that cube, and come join me over here for a nap. Calm you down a little bit before we head out again. I’ll text my boss, tell ‘em that I missed my flight, and tell my dad that car sale was a no-show. And you, mister, will take a load off and a nap. See how you feel when you wake up. And maybe head out, maybe wait more, ok?”

Tracks hesitated. “I would rather not stay here longer than we need too.” But his shoulders sagged, making his wings drop even more, “However, I do admit that I am rather tired.” He sat down on the slab, pulling out a cube. “A quick defrag and then we can head out.”

Raoul fished his phone out of his pocket and was surprised at how great his signal was. “Sounds like a plan.”

After a four hour nap with Raoul curled up onto Tracks’ chest like a cat wrapped up in his polishing cloth/throw blanket, the two set out. Making tracks down the dusty desert road.

As Raoul looked up at the rearview mirror, he saw the autobot base disappear into the distance.

They were going home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, Sorry about that guys! Also let me know if you thought anyone was too OOC
> 
> Idk when the next chapter is gonna come out, but it should be the last chapter for Year One! After that, there is two more years left before canon starts lmao


	8. Wake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the finality of your future hits you hard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter is basically a filler that ran away from me once Tracks opened his mouth. None of this was supposed to happen, but I liked it so I'm keeping it i guess
> 
> Also, heres a youtube playlist of the songs I listen to while writing this chapter, if you like acoustic covers:  
> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCtOFXEhcZE_NmKRR7WcvPduqDzP8an0c

Tracks hardly spoke the entire drive back to New York. 

He dropped Raoul off at home, and disappeared until it was time to drive him to work the next morning. Raoul himself spent most of that first night back, just laying in his shitty twin bed, staring at his stained ceiling, just trying to imagine visiting his family one day and find out that they all moved away without telling him. 

Every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was that strong, red-tinted face, crumpled up with anguish. Curling in on himself, he could hear that broken wail. Pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes, trying to hold back the wave of emotion that ran through him, he gave a sharp inhale. His stomach clenched when the spots behind his eyes all had that same dull blue of Tracks’ eyes.

Needless to say, he didn’t really sleep that night.

The next morning at work, his co-worker wasted no time reiterating this fact to him.

“Damn, Esquivel, you look like shit. Did you catch the red eye flight back or something?” His tone was full of mock pity. 

Jimmy Pink was lounging back on the front desk chair, boots propped up on the counter, and a sci-fi magazine being held lofty in one hand. He was, unfortunately, one of Raoul’s favourite co-workers. He was brilliant with cars, and had no trouble taking extra work when needed. The only problem was every time Jimmy opened his mouth, Raoul got a weird foreboding feeling that this is what Miguel was going to be like in his teen years, and the man wasn’t ready for that level of obnoxious yet. 

“Eh, cállate, Pink. Drove back, so I’m not really in the mood for your ‘concern’.” Raoul grumped, slapping at Pink’s boots as he walked past him to the change room. “And get your feet off the desk. Los chavales hoy no tienen buenos modales.”

Jimmy shouted at him before the locker room door swung shut. “I’m literally only two months younger than you, Raoul!” 

Old Man Sparkplug looked up as Raoul entered the locker room. He was sitting on the one rickety chair in the room, drinking his morning coffee. There was a slight frown on his face as he looked Raoul over. The latino just gave the older man a nod and opened his locker.

“Did I hear you say you _drove_ back, son? What happened to you selling that corvette you were fixin’ up?” Raoul shrugged out of his leather jacket, slipping off his jeans and sighed.

He slipped the jumpsuit over his under clothes and fiddled with the buttons before answering. “I don’t know, honestly. They just ended up being a no-show. I don’t know what I’m gonna do now though.” He rested his head against the cool metal of the locker. It felt wrong. After the two day drive back, he was so used to the low thrum of Track’s engine under metal, that he found he was missing the sensation now. “I don’t want to abandon the car, but I really can’t afford owning one in this city.”

God, the thought of having that talk with Tracks, especially after he lost everything made Raoul wanna throw up. Fuck, how heartless of him, _“sorry buddy, but you might have to go back to that big empty base again. It’s either you starve to death and be homeless or me and I’m volunteering you.”_

A large, warm, and rough hand clapped down onto his shoulder, snapping him out of his thoughts. Raoul turned his head to see Sparkplug give him a pitying sort of smile that made Raoul want to flinch away.

“Don’t worry, son. Everything will work out how it’s supposed to. Maybe you’ll find a buyer a little closer to home. The car’s a beauty and you did a real good job fixin her up, I know someone will take her.” He gave the younger’s shoulder another comforting squeeze and then moved over to the door. “Now come on, I gotta talk to you boys about somthin-- _Jimmy! What have I told you about having your boots on the counter!”_

Raoul quirked his lips in a fleeting smile and followed his boss. Once in the main room again, he flicked his eyes towards the main window, seeing Tracks parked on the far side of the lot. Maybe it was because of the cloudy morning lighting, or the smoggy feel of intercity air, but he looked really cold and lonely out there. The rich blue paint that normally glittered, looked a little dull. He didn’t even realize he was frowning until he caught Sparkplug giving him this deeply concerned look from his periphery. 

The old man cleared this throat. “Now, I know this might seem a little short notice, but I’m gonna be leaving in a couple of days to help my son start a branch of this company over in Oregon.” Raoul blinked, he thought Spike was living over near Albany? Why Oregon, he couldn’t think of one important thing in the entire state. 

Sparkplug rolled his eyes at the confused looks the boys were giving him, “Yeah, tell me about it, of all the places he wants to spread his wing, it’s the farthest from home.”

“A little like someone else we know.” Jimmy snorted, a shit eating smirk on his lips as he elbowed Raoul. Cabrón, Raoul elbowed him back, rolling his eyes as the other yelped.

Sparkplug chuckled, he always ignored their antics, something about building a family bond and boys will be boys. “Now, I’m not gonna shut up shop here, so don’t you two worry. My other boy, Butch, is gonna run the paperwork and things while I’m gone, so you boys will still have all the parts you need and get paid. Raoul, you’re basically gonna be in charge of everything else. Accepting and dealing with customers, organizing shifts, doing lock up, enforcing the rules-- the works.” 

Raoul felt a little stunned, Sparkplug was entrusting him to run this place while he was gone? His pride and joy? Like sure, Raoul kinda just did whatever he wanted normally, but it was always with his boss’ permission. This was…. kind of a huge honour. 

Jimmy snorted, “Oh, stop looking so misty-eyed. I don’t know if you’ve realized this, Raoul. But you’ve basically been running this shop for the past few months by now. I mean, you basically fired Kyle last month, and Charlie literally has been calling you our manager for, what, a _year_ now? She literally goes to you instead of Sparky when she’s got a problem-- no offence, Old Man. Not to mention, none of the other guys get to work on side projects here. Just you.”

Sparkplug gave a belly laugh as he ruffled a still-shocked Raoul’s hair. “You’ve been acting manager for a while now, son. Handling Kyle for me was just the final nudge for promotion. Didn’t you realize you’ve been getting an actual manager’s pay these past weeks?”

Raoul felt his face flush a little. He thought that increase was the old man pitying him. He’d been so focused on all of the Tracks related issues in life that changes to his work life kinda didn’t really phase him so much anymore. “Uh… kinda?” 

Jimmy rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath while Sparkplug laughed. Shaking his head the old man continued. “You’ll do fine, I’ll only be gone for two months, max. And Butch will help you out with anything that doesn’t involve touching car parts.” He rolled his eyes, fondly exasperated, “Boy wants to be a P.A or secretary or something. Don’t know where he got this aversion for good old hard work from, but it wasn’t me.”

After that, the work day passed in a blur. Sparkplug gave him another run down of where all the important stuff was, what he needed to do with all of it and when. He also gave him the only copy of the master key. All of this new responsibility, paired with the emotional turmoil of the past week, Raoul was reasonably exhausted by the time he watched Sparkplug’s old truck drive out of the lot.

After a minute of sitting by the spare garage door, where he normally worked on Tracks’ upkeep and that prototype of the energon refiner-- god, he was gonna have to finish that now, wasn’t he?-- Tracks rolled over towards him, headlights still in his hood and engine quite. He stopped a few centimeters away from Raoul’s propped up knees, the hot air from his vents washing over him. 

Quirking a tired smile, Raoul reached up and ran a hand slowly over his bumper. He felt a little warmer under his fingertips than normal. After a few more seconds of the silent patting, Tracks’ headlights popped up, and Raoul chuckled, his tired brain making him think of the bot saying “Peek-a-boo!” in his snobby voice.

“Come on, let’s get you in the garage. I’ll wash the dirt off your wheels, and then you can stretch your legs a little bit.” Raoul patted the bumper and Tracks reversed enough to let the human stand. He stretched his arms above his head, feeling something inside him pop delightfully.

Tracks rolled forward and nudged the back of his legs with his bumper. Raoul just gave a small chuckle an patted his hood. “Yeah, yeah. I’m getting the door open, hold your horsepower for a second.”

There was no teasing rev in return, no winking headlights or plating shaking from hidden amusement at the joke. Instead all there was, was the steady pressure of Tracks bumper against his legs, slightly warm, but no other sign of life.

Raoul looked away and frowned, tried not to be upset by this cold shoulder. He just went through a huge loss. Give the mech time to heal. He bent down a little, pressing in Tracks warm plating a little more, to grab the handle on the garage door. Heaving, he pulled it up and pushed it above him and moved aside. Tracks didn’t transform like he normally would have, instead he just pulled into the open space and put himself in park. Raoul felt his lips pull down a little more. He grabbed the rope attached the the bottom of the garage door and pulled it down. Shutting them both inside.

_____________________

While Raoul gathered the stuff he needed to wash Tracks’ tires, the bot in question stayed silent. The air around them was still, yet charged with something Raoul didn’t know. An emotion, he could guess, as it felt like that stillness before a dam burst, destroying anything in its path.

He set the bucket down by one of Tracks’ front tires. After wetting the sponge he got to work, not bothering to put on any music or chat like he normally would. If Tracks wanted silence, that’s fine, he can have silence. He’ll just sit here on the cold floor and support his friend like this.

It wasn’t until Raoul had moved to the other front tire that Tracks finally spoke. HIs voice was crackly with static, probably from either disuse of emotion.

“Have I ever told you the story of how I came to Earth?”

Raoul paused his scrubbing, thinking. “No, I don’t you have.” He looked up at the car and tried to figure out what emotion was running through that robot brain. Having no human face like this would make him awful to play poker with.

“Ah, well it’s quite the adventure. I was on a Q-Class battlecruiser with other Autobot allies. There weren’t a lot of us, only about two hundred or so, scrounged up from the far reaches of the known universe since the end of the war. All that was left of the Autobot army, really. Our captain, Prowl, had us en route to the location sent via an Autobot encrypted message from Prime himself. Blaster managed to pick up some chatter on the airwaves about Decepticons moving large amounts of energon towards Cybertron. Which was suspicious because the planet has been dead and quite for almost a thousand years at this point.

“So Prowl sent Cliffjumper and I in this tiny pod to scout it out and return. Ordered to not engage the enemies at all, and return _immediately_ if we even _thought_ we were going to be discovered. We were so few in numbers at this point, that Prowl would fritz at the thought of losing just _one_ of us.” Tracks sounded like he was smiling despite the grim words, which made Raoul smile to himself as he mindless ran a drying cloth over the hubcap.

“So _naturally_ , Cliff managed to get us captured. We were tortured by Starscream for, humm, about five or so Earth days before he gave up. In the brig, there was another Autobot, the small two wheeler, Arcee.” Tracks moved his wheel and nudged his arm in a playful bump. “You would have liked her. Very much like Antonio at this point. All serious, no time for socializing or having fun, and she was known across both fractions for being a deadly combatant with a kill count longer than she is tall.” Tracks sounded like he was almost proud, even though Raoul felt a little uneasy. He wasn’t too fond of the comparison of his brother to a bot he knew reveled in killing. 

“I never really interacted with her before, but Cliffjumper has.” There was a pause, “You would think that a bot so quick to anger and jump to conclusions wouldn’t have such wonderful socializing skills. Yet before we made it to Cybertron, Cliff managed to charm Arcee into trusting us. With her, there was a good chance of us breaking out and making it back to our crew. Prowl would be pleased that we managed to recruit another _another_ of our ranks as well.”

Then he sank onto his tires a little, “But when we saw who Starscream was delivering energon to, we all _knew_ I wasn’t getting out alive unless something was done quick. You see, hybrids like myself were rare before the war, but _now?_ No one comes to mind who shares my frame type, except myself. So, when Starscream handed us over to _Shockwave_ , the feared Decepticon scientist, known across both fractions as emotionless, cold, and logic driven? We all knew that I would be cracked open in _kliks_ so he can figure out how I tick.”

Raoul felt sick. “Wait, what do you mean hybrid? Is this something to do with you being a noble?” He had one hand clutching around the cold, damp sponge and another gripping into the bot’s tire. After what happened two days ago, Raoul had a perfect image of the bot’s fear, how he must have looked strapped down and torn into, begging for mercy.

“Ah, no. Remember our talk about frame types, and how I am a special case as one of the few Autobots that can fly? That’s because most of us are groundframes, and can’t fly at all unless they have anti-grav mods installed. Likewise, flightframes can’t move on the ground like us, because they don’t have wheels. The only bots that can possibly do both are triplechangers, those that have more than one alt-mode, and can have _both_ groundframes and flightframes naturally. 

“Now, a hybrid is something like myself: a bot that only has one alt-mode, yet can do things outside of what the Functionalists deem _normal_. Like a car with wings that can fly, or a truck that can float like a boat, a jet with wheels that can drive down the street like a car. Things that should only be achieved through mods and are unnatural within the foundations of Functionalism.”

Raoul scowled, “So basically, these guys are racist and wanted to experiment on you cause you’re interracial? Mierda, if I ever see those Starscream or Shockwave fuckers, I’ll use ‘em for scrap.” His nails dug into the tire possessively. 

The small chuckle paired with the light rev of an engine gave away how amused, yet flattered, the big blue guy thought of that declaration. “ _Raoul_ , you are just one small, and squishy human, while Starscream is second in command of the _entirety_ of the Decepticon forces, _and_ Wing Lord of all Seekers. I highly doubt whatever damage you could do to him, what any human could do, would be enough to scratch his paint.” The wheel shifted again, nudging and pressing into Raoul’s arm. He felt warm to the touch. “And although I appreciate the sentiment, it is unnecessary. We were on Cybertron for less than an Earth day before Arcee and Cliff managed to escape, not only breaking myself out from under Shockwave’s grasp, but destroying the prototype space bridge he was creating to travel to Optimus’ position.”

“The fight was gruesome, and I was already heavily damaged from Shockwave’s brief attentions, but we knew it was our only chance to stop the Decepticons from getting to Prime, as well as saving ourselves. Between the three of us, we managed to _completely_ destroy Shockwave’s prototype, his lab, and kill _him_ as well.” There was a fierce satisfaction there, one that had that same undertone which sent shivers up Raoul’s spine. It was that tone that reminded him so clearly of Tracks killing those drones without thought, stepping over their corpses like they were nothing more than a fallen branch on a hiking trail. 

The human looked away from the bot, focusing on collecting up the supplies and moving down to one of the back tires. He always forgot that Tracks was a soldier, someone that spent millions of years killing and fighting, and that always made him feel uneasy. Raoul himself had never been a big supporter of war, but he also never thought about it that much in depth before meeting Tracks. The thought of anyone just killing someone and not feeling guilt over it, and boasting about the deed, sent shivers up his spine. 

He much preferred Tracks the snob, the sentient car that scoffs at how boring automotive paint jobs are on Earth, or recoils in disgust when Rocksteady tries to put fake antlers and a red nose on him. Tracks the artist, who likes to listen to classical music, who will tolerate 80’s pop if its in an acoustic cover, who spends his free time in the garage with the Bop Crew, helping Poplock and Rocksteady shop for clothes online while Raoul would tinker with the Cybertronian’s frame.

With a jolt he realized that Tracks probably understood that already. Which was why he didn’t let the human into battle areas, or why he glossed over the violence in his stories unlike when he recounted battles for the Bop Crew. His friends loved the drama and the tension in the stories, and Tracks liked attention so he always embellished them. He felt a little embarrassed for this coddling, war and violence were commonplace in humanity. Hell, when it came to people he cared about, he had no issues letting his fists do the talking. 

Still chasing this thought process, the Latino mindlessly started to lather the sponge again. Maybe… maybe it wasn’t the thought of war that bothered him so much, as he never felt this deeply about the subject before. Maybe, it was because he almost always associated war and violence to this negative view of Tracks. Imagining Tracks getting injured, or having him lose the parts of him that allowed him to be so… loveable?

The car shuddered when Raoul ran the sponge over his hubcap, making the human flinch in surprise. He hissed in pain as he bit down hard on the lip he was absently chewing on while he thought, and almost tipped over the bucket of water by his legs, splashing soapy water on his uniform. 

Cheeks flushing with embarrassment, Raoul whipped his head towards Tracks’ dash, about to ask him what his deal was, when he spied himself in the car’s side mirror. Raoul flushed a little more as he saw how ruddy his face already was, and his bottom lip was a little swollen where he bit it, but at least he wasn’t bleeding. Dios, he was a mess and knew those mirrors were linked to how Tracks could see in his car mode. So the bot probably saw him space the hell out and make a mess of himself. Wonderful.

He turned and went back to scrubbing at the dirt on the bot’s hubcaps, hoping Tracks wouldn’t tease him. “Sorry, didn’t mean to tune you out, just, uh, imagining what all these guys looked like.” He cleared his throat, and used a spray bottle full of clean water to rise the soap off.

Letting out a little burst of static Tracks continued, “We-- we were already going through the space bridge when it exploded, so we ended up here on Earth. We soon found the Autobot base, since the bridge was linked to the coordinates Prime left in the message. The rest is, as they say, history. _Now,_ are you done with my wheels, I brought an image cube from the base if you want to see what everyone looks like?”

Raoul looked up in surprise, “You got photos? Hell yeah I’d like to see them!” He made to stand up but froze half way. “Uh, I’m not done yet, still got another wheel to go.”

“ _Nonsense,_ I’ll do it myself while you look at the pictures.” The engine revved, that same pleased purr that Tracks always made before he showed off. Raoul had just enough time to take a step back before Tracks’ plating spun and shifted in front and around him. Because of the height of the garage, Tracks had to transform in a crouched position, perched on his pointed metal toes like some type of cat. There was a slight swoosh of air and Raoul found himself looking up into Tracks’ face, so close to his own, with his clawed hands bracing themselves on either side of the humans body.

That pleased purr filled up all the space in the garage, and Raoul found himself flushing again as he stared into those big, glowing, almond shaped eyes. A pleased, satisfied smile began to spread across his red face, those pointed fangs peeking out behind metal lips. They stayed like that for a moment, Tracks just gazing down at the small human and Raoul transfixed on the happy face, something he hasn’t seen in days.

Suddenly, the Cybertronian shifted, and one of his clawed hands were trailing down his scalp, touch feather light. He shivered at the sensation. “Oh I mussed up you hair, here let just fix th--oops!” Raoul heard the elastic that was keeping his hair pinned back snap.

“Hey!” He saw the flash of interest in those big eyes as their inner components circled and whirled, like a camera lens zooming in. 

“My, _my!_ I don’t think I’ve ever seen you with your hair down! It’s so wavy!” Those claw tips ran through his hair, gently pulling at the strands. “Why _Raoul,_ you look quite handsome like this! For a human, of course.” He mused his hair, pushing parts so they framed his face, engine rumbling a little louder at what he saw. 

Raoul, face burning, slapped away the hand. “Hey! What is with you and my hair! Get 'outta here! You promised to show me some photos not play around with me like some Ken doll!” He pulled the hair away from his face and tucked it behind his ears, scowling. Shit, he was going to have to buy a new hair tie, he was pretty sure that was the last one he owned. Little shits just kept disappearing.

The bot just huffed a sigh, rolling his eyes. “You are _absolutely_ no fun.” He moved, no longer boxing Raoul in and instead, sat back so he was sitting down properly. He reached into that weird space pocket that seemed to be tucked into his hips and pulled out a little metal cube. He placed the cube on the ground in front of the human and pressed a claw tip to one side. “Here we are.”

An image projected upwards, and Raoul gasped as he saw a coloured holographic image of several Cybertronians tower above him. 

“Come here, you can see better on my shoulder.” Tracks clawed hand scooped him up, ignoring the half hearted protest, and deposited him on one of his tired shoulders. It was a tire he had just washed so it was a little damp, but he was too engrossed in the better view of the hologram to complain. 

From this perspective he could see three Cybertronians in the image. The largest one was easily identifiable as Tracks, but Raoul gaped at how large he was compared to the other two. The second largest was a red bot, a head and a half shorter than Tracks, stockier than the other two, with a dark grey face and two white horns popping out of his head. The smallest, was a blue and pink bot, slimmer than Tracks, and Raoul was surprised at how… feminine she looked, what with her heart shaped face and chest armour that helped her have a more human female like appearance. 

While he knew from stories that Arcee was smaller than the winged bot, seeing it in person was startling. She barely even came up to his chest, standing at her tallest just past his waist. 

They weren’t looking at the camera, it was a candid shot of them just standing around what appeared to be the Nevada base, chatting with each other. Arcee had this startled look on her face as she looked at Tracks, and Cliffjumper-- because who else would be so open with those two here on Earth?-- was laughing uproariously at whatever the taller bot had said. Tracks himself had a clawed hand on his chest, body language smug with his wings spread proudly behind him, clearly looking like he was saying something stupidly smug and snobby to the smaller bot. 

“That was taken probably about a week or so before you found me. I forgot what we were talking about, Cliff, Arcee and I, a bet or something. And I had the _pleasure_ of telling Arcee, the small blue one, about how _wrong_ she was. A once in a lifetime opportunity, I assure you.” Raoul shook a little as the bot chuckled. 

He had speared the large sponge on one of his claw tips, and was gently rubbing at the hubcap on his other shoulder. Raoul was being jostled a little at the movement, but didn’t mind. He was enjoying seeing Tracks finally talking, and happy, and playful again. The past two days of his stilted silence had hurt, and while he guessed the bot wasn’t don't being upset, he knew that this was a step in the right direction. 

The big bot bent down a little and swiped a claw at the cube, and the image changed. Now it was a selfie, Tracks clearly the one taking it, with a shit eating grin on his face. Behind him, he could see a red and white bot with a boxy frame, details blurred by movement as he reached for a smaller, yellow, blurry bot with what looked like little wings behind him, ducking under the grasp. Half out of the frame on the other side was a red blur, most likely Cliffjumper, as he too ran away from the larger, enraged bot.

“This is Ratchet, our team’s CMO and resident grump. The little yellow guy he’s trying to strangle is Bumblebee.” His voice was warm as he recalled the story. “Cliff was rough housing with Bee after Ratchet told them to move it to the sparring room. _Obviously_ they didn’t listen, and Bee bumped into Ratchet, making him drop whatever device he was holding. I happened to catch the moment before Ratchet knocked them in stasis for a “time out” to reflex on their behaviour.” He snickered, and swiped to the next image, which was taken at such a low angle it must have been taken by Arcee.

This one had four bots in it. His eyes first focused on a beaming bot who was just under Tracks' height, but much wider and chunkier than him, with a deep green frame that was peeking out from the mud and dirt covering him. He stood beside Cliff and Bumblebee, both were covered in the same amount of filth, and not looking nearly as pleased at their current appearance as their large, green friend. Just off to the side so he wasn't in danger of touching the others, Tracks stood, looking pristine as ever. He was smiling, eyes glittering as he posed, pleased as punch. Raoul noticed how different all their body types were. He was so used to seeing how angular and slim Tracks looked, that seeing him beside these top heavy, rounded armour, Autobots really made him stand out. He also noticed that none of the other Autbots in the photo had Tracks' clawed hands, which was another weird detail to him as he couldn't picture the corvette without them. 

“Oh! I remember this one! We were sent to investigate an energon signature, but the area around it was _filthy_ , all loose soil and mud. Those three were forced to drive around as we chased after the Decepticons, but I managed to stay clean by flying. I think it was Bulkhead that managed to wrestle the last Decepticon down so we could steal the fuel, which is why he’s the grossest. Arcee was so amused by the fact that I was the only one the managed to stay clean, that I think she took this photo.” There was a sigh, a wistful one that made Raoul turn to look at the big bot’s face.

He still had that smile on his face, but it was a little sad. He gazed down at the picture like the happy image hurt, and it probably did. Maybe it was too soon for him to look at these pictures, to be remembered of the friends that left him behind. Or maybe, this helped. Like looking at photos of people who passed, sharing stories of the happy moments with people closest to you, to help lessen the pain in your heart when you think about them.

Whatever it was, whatever this trip down memory lane meant to Tracks, Raoul would sit through and be here for him. Whatever the future held for them, he would stay by this bot’s side, his friend’s side. He’d figure out that money situation later, maybe even taking up the Bop Crew’s offer of rooming up with them again. Or maybe he would find out some other way to get money. He sighed, leaning into the warm frame of his friend. Things would work themselves out, they had too. 

Tracks lent down again to swipe the cube for another image, continuing their trip down memory lane, together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blah, the Bop Crew was supposed to show up this chapter but idek what happened. Theyll be back next chapter, I promise


	9. Late Nights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Advice, Wonton soup, and Premeditated Treason

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if this chapter isn't formulated like the others and is kinda jumpy/ooc, a majority of it was written after i took cough syrup

As he did one last sweep of the garage before locking up, Raoul wished he could go back to a time when the most stressful thing in his life was saving up for his big move. That was such a simpler time. 

He’s been back home for two whole days now, and this entire week has felt like an emotional rollercoaster he just wanted to end. While looking at those hologram photos with Tracks last night seemed to help the big guy for a bit, it didn’t last. When they were packing up to go home he got all quiet again, then disappeared with a promise to be back to drive the human to work in the morning. 

Thankfully, since it was friday and both Pop and Rock were off work by noon-- well, Rocksteady only had morning classes to teach on fridays, and as a mildly popular Youtuber, Poplock could make his own hours and would most likely not be doing anything on a friday either. So both of them were more than willing to hang out with the big bot and try and cheer him up while Raoul was at work. He had texted both of them during that awkward, silent drive back, letting them know what happened in Nevada, and they were very sympathetic.

Tracks was a little suspicious when he returned in the morning to see the three of them waiting for him, but agreed after only a little hesitation and a trio of human ‘puppy eyes’. 

This let Raoul focus on the second stressor-- his job. 

Don’t get him wrong, work was actually something that normally relaxed him. Something about working with his hands just eased some tension in his shoulders. And it was like Sparkplug had told him yesterday, he was basically helping him run this place for over a year now. He worked 8 hour shifts every day and often stayed for ‘over-time’, always did lock up, and was the one to put the fire under the asses of some of his lazier co-workers. Even though he was their boss, Sparkplug hated having to get more firm than an ‘annoyed dad’ level at his workers, and was more than happy that Raoul was willing to fill in on the much needed discipline. 

Especially on his co-workers like Sam. Who was the embodiment of ‘straight white man’, and definitely didn’t think about the consequences of things that didn’t directly affect himself. Which was why Raoul called him to help tow Tracks’ broken body back to the shop a year ago. Sam didn’t really care why or how Raoul got his hands on a broken down Corvette, he mostly went along with the plan because he could use this favour to swap ideal shifts with the latino. The guy was practically thirty and Raoul was seriously surprised at how long this guy lasted without having someone punch him in the face at any given moment.

Hell, even Tracks wasn’t fond of him and he really only interacted with him twice. If asked his opinion, he would say “If Swindle and Sideswipe ever combined into the pathetic form of a human male, that would be Sam.” 

To be fair, the only time Tracks did interact with the guy, since he started hanging around Raoul, was two months ago. It was a pretty memorable moment and didn’t really spark that much good feelings for Raoul either.  
__________

“ _Raoul_ , if you don’t get this slimy human’s _paws_ off of me in _two astroseconds_ , I’ll blow my cover by _stepping_ on him, I don’t even _care_ what Optimus will have to say about that when I see him.” Track’s voice seethed in the bluetooth. 

Raoul, who was checking the tire pressure on a minivan, almost broke his neck he whipped it up so fast. “¿Que?”

“Bro, what?” Jimmy jumped, startled by his co-worker’s sudden movement. He watched, dazed and trying to calm his racing heart, as Raoul prowled over to the open garage door.

“¡Hostia puta! Where is Sam?” It didn’t take even two seconds before he answered his own question. 

In the lot, Sam was leaning against Tracks’ driver side door, trying to look like some cool guy as he patted Tracks’ roof. Raoul narrowed his eyes, watching as Sam stumbled his way into most likely harassing a female customer by his shitty flirting. She looked distinctly uncomfortable, and awkwardly laughed at something Sam was saying.

“Oh, man. Do you got a sixth sense when someone touches your car or something? Or is it a ‘some loser is slacking at work’ vibe?” Jimmy asked, leaning against the minivan as he watched Sam secure them a bad review on Yelp. Again. 

Raoul felt his upper lip pull into a sneer as he watch Sam drag a finger down Tracks’ windshield as he walked closer to the customer. It looked like he was trying to entice her into a drive around in his car. Pink shook his head in pity as the woman froze as Sam approached. 

Before he knew what he was doing Raoul was stalking towards them, anger burning in his chest. “ _Oi!_ Sam, get off _my_ car, _ese,_ I just had it washed!” There was a fierce satisfaction as he watched the older man scramble off the Corvette, eyes wide as he saw the not-yet-his-second-boss heading towards him with a clearly not pleased look on his face. 

The latino eyed him, making sure he was a good distance away from Tracks, then turned to the female customer, who looked a little relieved. “Hello ma’am, if you’d like, Charlie is just inside the waiting room and she’ll help you out with whatever you need. Sam here,” and he turned a pointed glare at the older man, who was trying to inch away, “Was just getting off break and going back to work on that oil change, _right?_ ” 

“Uh, yup! I’ll, uh, go do that. Sorry.” Raoul watched as he practically ran back into the garage, face flushed with embarrassment as Jimmy was not even trying to hide his snickers. 

Sighing, he turned back to the customer, “I’m really sorry about that ma’am.”

She gave him a smile, “It’s alright.” She glanced back at Tracks, who was grumbling in Raoul’s ear about needing another wash. “Is that really your car? It’s gorgeous, very… smooth looking.” 

“Yup, a 1999 Chevrolet Corvette, use ‘em as an advertisement of sorts, since I basically rebuilt it from scrap.” There was a offended protest from the bluetooth as Tracks claimed he wasn’t _that_ fragged up when they met. “Why don’t we head inside? Charlie will be more than happy to help you with what you came here for.”

After passing the customer off to Charlie, Raoul went back to the garage and got back to work. He’d let the others tell Old Sparkplug about Sam flirting with customers again. Maybe, if Raoul was lucky, both him and Kyle would end up getting the boot pretty soon and he’d have two less things to annoy him at work.  
____________

Unfortunately, Sam was still around, but a nice bonus was that Kyle’s new replacement didn’t really take kindly to his bullshit either. So he didn’t have to deal with his slacking off and shitty attitude alone. 

Verity’s only been here a month and got the job ‘cause Jimmy put in a good word about her. And she was a girl Pilar would swoon over and demand to paint like she was some type of Amazonian muse. Hair shaved into a mohawk, tattoo sleeves up both her arms, tough girl ‘I don’t need anybody’ attitude, and arms that made Raoul himself a little jealous. 

And with her and Charlie on shift today with Sam, Raoul was subjected to the constant background noise of the three of them sniping at each other. 

Even on his breaks he wasn’t free from listening to Sam to whine “Raoul! Verity is threatening to hit me with a wrench!” or for Verity to snarl back “Oh, man up Sam! I wouldn’t have to threaten you if you didn’t keep staring at my rack!” only for Charlie to cry out “No wait, don’t throw that I need it!” 

Christ, after today Raoul was starting to feel what ‘Toni goes through every time his older brother interacts with their siblings and he was not liking it. The pounding of his headache that was building over the day peaked around six o’clock, when he realized he not only left his lunch at home, but his wallet as well. He sent a text to Rocksteady that he would very much appreciate it if he could bring food with him when they came by after work.

Surprisingly, once he got off break his co-workers must have finally noticed his pissy attitude and quieted down a little, but he could still see them silently bickering at each other out of the corner of his eye.

He didn’t know if he could handle being solely in charge of this garage for a couple of months. He might actually crumble from the stress alone. Or kill one of them. 

Finishing the final sweep of the garage, Raoul rubbed at his temples and decided to lock up and head over the to spare garage in the back of the lot. He’d wait for Tracks and the Bop Crew there as he got back to tinkering with the Energon refiner. _Another_ thing he had to worry about. He wanted to be supportive and not a total stick in the mud for his friends, but _Christ_ did he just want food, some advil, and a long nap.

As he stepped out of the front door he was surprised to see Verity still around, he thought she left with the others ten minutes ago. He locked the main door and walked up to her.

“What you still doing around here? Not gonna head home? It’s friday night.” There was something about how she was sitting with furrowed brow that made him slip into what Pilar called Big Bro Mode. She was perched cross legged on the hood of her bright green and yellow hummer, lighting up a dart. 

The thing was kind of an eyesore paint job wise, and something about it made Tracks sputter in shock when he first saw it parked in the lot before grumbling about how stupid he was, but he didn’t feel inclined to share his thoughts on it. Personally, Raoul didn’t really picture Verity as the kind of person to own a big bulky gas guzzler, she seemed like she would own an old beat up Toyota if anything. 

He asked her about it once and she just shrugged and said it was a gift from her rich girlfriend. The same girlfriend that owned farmland just outside the city, and a snazzy apartment downtown Manhattan too. Pink had seen it, and always updated his Twitter with pictures of the view, and how lavish the place was when he visited. 

The girlfriend was the perfect package, at least in Raoul’s eyes. She was rich, tall, gorgeous with strong features, completely loyal, and had a wicked sense of humor. The one, and only, time she stopped by to pick up Verity three weeks ago, she made a bet with Charlie about something, then proceed to effortlessly lift up her, Jimmy, and Raoul up onto her arms and then did fucking _squats!_ Jimmy teased him for a week about how red his face was when she did that. 

Verity looked up at his approach and shrugged. He had no idea how she wasn’t cold. It was early March and she was only wearing tights and a white, low cut muscle tee that did nothing to hide her bright red sports bra. He could see the tattoos on her shoulders move with the motion, the splashes of colour seemed to almost glow in the streetlight. 

She took a drag of the freshly lit dart in her mouth before responding. “Dunno, just stalling. Not really looking forward to going home just yet.” She offered him the dart, “Look stressed, wanna drag?”

Raoul eyed the cigarette and plucked it from her fingers. “Thanks.” He leaned up against the hummer’s bumper on Verity’s left as he took a drag and let his head tilt up at the light polluted night sky. 

He never smoked regularly, but he did on occasion when he wanted to try and relieve built up tension. Well, before he met Tracks, of course. The prissy bot would lock his doors and demand he go shower off the tobacco smell before getting in, so he just ended up quitting since it was such a hassle. But, Christ, after a week like this? He needed one.

He let the smoke just curl in his lungs for a minute, savouring the sickly sweet burn of it before exhaling up. He passed the dart back and looked at her. “Having trouble in paradise? I got time to listen if you wanna vent, my friends have my car so I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.”

She was quite for a minute, just holding the dart between her fingers, eyes trained onto the tumbling embers. He just lazily stared at the green and white geometric fox tattoo that looked like it was sitting proudly on her inner right arm, just underneath the blocky word ‘Rule’ on her inner wrist. She pulled another drag before turning away to exhale. “My girl wants me to reconnect with my parents. Thinks it’ll be good for me. Got into a fight this morning about it, again, and I know she’s gonna bring it up again when I get back.”

Raoul flinched. “Oh, yikes. Why the hell is she pushing that?” He didn’t know the whole story, and what he did know was almost strictly from Jimmy’s big mouth. What he heard was shitty though-- divorced folks, neglect, verbal fights with her mom until she ran away at fifteen. Then after having some distant uncle help her get her life back together and take her in, she found out that her mom remarried and treated her new kids with more affection than Verity ever got. Raoul had some tensions with his own family, but man, he knew he was lucky. At least he always knew he was loved.

Verity frowned, passing the dart off to him and hunching into herself a little. “She finally met her birth parents last week, fucking dysfunctional couple of the century too, but, I don’t know. She says she felt good with having a conversation with her crazy ass birth mom and wants to keep in touch-- even though she has _wonderful_ dads who love her _more than anything_ and gave her the _world!_ ” She huffed, confused and angry, and Raoul calmly just took a drag of the cigarette and watched her. “So now! She thinks that just because _she_ is able to _‘patch things up’_ with her birth family” She angrily threw up her hands to apply finger quotes, “That it would be good for me to do the same with my bitch of a mother!” She growled, arms flexing as her hands curled into fists. “Even though we had two _completely different_ childhoods! And I would rather die than look at her face again!” She shook a little, “After what she did to me? She’s lucky I decided to _just_ forget about her.”

Blowing the smoke out from his lungs and flicking off the excess ashes, Raoul offered Verity the dart again, watching her take a deep suck on the stick to calm down. He sighed and looked back up at the sky. “I feel ‘ya man. If I were in your shoes I wouldn’t want to ever see your mom again.” 

_“Thank you!”_

He thought of Tracks then, alone and grieving his lost team, his lost family. How just a week ago he was berating Raoul into talking with his own family more, and showering his siblings and parents with gifts almost as a final act of trying to, maybe, leave Raoul with a happy memory of family before he met up with his own. Or how he tried to.

He knew the big bot didn’t have the best life either growing up, if he even did grow up before the war. He thought about the words ‘sire’ and ‘twin’ that Tracks would say in that cold, detached voice of his whenever he was angry or mentioning the horrors of war. The quiet, indifferent anger was much different than Verity’s passionate spitting of the word ‘mother’, but the feeling behind the words were the same. 

Before he knew it, his mouth was running on autopilot. “I got this roommate, Travis. From what I can gather, he didn’t have the best home life either. I don’t know much, he doesn’t talk about it if he can help it, but I know he did run away from home too.” From his city’s destruction more like, but eh, details. “Anyway, anytime he mentions his birth family he gets all quiet and angry and changes the subject. But like you, he found his own family, people he cares about and knows that care about him.” Raoul shifted a little so he could wave a hand at her. “‘Ya’know, like your uncle, Jimmy, your girlfriend, that dorky white guy who stopped by two weeks ago to drop of the lunch you forgot-- what’s his name?”

“Hunter.” She said softly.

“Yeah, that guy, not to mention all those other people you post pictures with on twitter, and your girl’s folks too. You got people now to support you. So you’re right, you don’t need your mom or anything she has to offer, if she’s offering anything.”

Where was he going with this? He closed his eyes, think Raoul, think. “But what I think your girl is trying to get at is…” He could see hollow look in Tracks face as he realized Team Prime left without him, that bitter twist of his mouth when he says ‘twin’ and ‘sire’ like they’re dead. “...Is that she doesn’t want you to live with any regrets. Maybe she thinks closure with your mom might be able to help you move on, to completely forget her, or hell who knows, maybe even make up if that’s what you want later, I don’t know.” 

“Maybe, maybe she doesn’t want you to have to deal with the ‘what if’s’ like she spent her whole life thinking about when it comes family. But you’re allowed to tell her you need time. Hell, even a lot of time before you think about it seriously. I mean, you said it yourself she’s a bitch and it took you years to heal from what she did to you, and no offence, but it sounds like you’re still healing, right?” He shot a glance at her, and saw her staring pensively at the burnt out dart in her hand, all the ashes dotting her red combat boots. 

Man, he hoped he wasn’t overstepping any boundaries. He looked away, towards the open gate entrance of the garage lot. Where the fuck was his Crew? He wrapped his leather jacket around himself a little tighter, it was getting colder out here, “If I were you, I’d probably tell her that you know she means well, but that she’s definitely rushing you on this. Tell her you’re happy she found joy in reconnecting with her birth folks, but you know what’s best for you and all that shit. So she needs to respect your boundaries too, and if she really wants to help you she can start by helping you heal. I don’t know, maybe she can buy you a therapist, or take you on a vacation, or buy you another car, or whatever it is that rich people do to feel better.”

If he could get away with blowing their cover, and if they would ever actually understand what the bot was going through, and if he could afford it, Raoul would throw a therapist at Tracks in a heartbeat. That guy has serious baggage and Raoul has no idea where to even start, besides just quietly supporting him.

There was a metallic thud beside him, and he turned to see Verity, with her legs now dangling off the bumper, sprawled across the hood with her arm tossed over her face. The dart bud was still between her left hand fingers as she draped the arm across the hood behind him. There was a dark grey, or maybe it was black it was hard to tell in the dim light, little raised fist tattoo with geometric blue, yellow, and white flowers surrounding it on the inner part of her left arm, with the blocky word ‘Wreck’ on her wrist. 

They were silent for a bit, Raoul just listening to the city nightlife. Minutes must have ticked by, and Raoul was getting annoyed that the Bop Crew still weren’t here. He checked his phone and frowned, work ended like, almost forty minutes ago where were they?

“Hey, Raoul?” He turned back to look at Verity. She had her arm lifted a little, and was peeking out at him from under it. “Thanks, man.” She said softly. 

He shrugged, a little smile tugging at his lips. “What are friends for, if not free therapy? Actually scratch that, I wouldn’t take any advice Jimmy gives you, ever. Guy’s a loser and a man-child.”

She snorted and sat back up, digging in her jean jacket pocket for another pack of smokes. She put one between her lips and lit it, taking in a deep drag. When she exhaled, she seemed to loosen up, like she was blowing all the stress out with the smoke. “Not as big of a man-child as Sam. Do me a huge favour and fire his ass while you have the power. Witwicky won’t do it cause he looks like Spike and he’s hoping to work manners into him or something.” She offered him the dart.

He snorted and took it, taking a drag. “Old Man Sparkplug will be getting more than enough time with his actual son in the next couple of months, so I don’t think he really cares. So yeah, I would, but then we’d be short staffed and I do not feel comfortable hiring anyone on.” 

She tucked her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, showing off the beautiful geometric helicopters and racecars she has weaving around each other all over her biceps. “I wouldn’t mind working more hours to make up, it’s not like we’re crazy swamped with work every day.”

He frowned, “I’ll think about it.” He mumbled around the dart. Ugh, maybe if they do hire on someone new he’d have Sparkplug’s other son, Butch, handle resumes and interviews and stuff. Hiring someone on seems more like admin work than the hands on work Raoul is supposed to be in charge of. 

Before either of them could say anything else, there was a loud rev of an engine, one Raoul would know anywhere, and the sudden, brilliant flare of headlights illuminating the dimly lit garage lot. 

Raoul grunted, biting down on the dart so he didn’t drop it as he lifted an arm up to shield his face from the too bright lights. Good god, he blinked the spots out of his eyes, he forgot how dramatic his friends were, of course they would want to make an entrance. 

He could make out a figure leaning out of the passenger side window and Poplock’s loud voice. “Raoul, you have three chances to guess who got our good buddy here hooked on America’s Next Top Model and brought the latest DVD box set so we could binge it tonight, and your first two guesses don’t count!”

Raoul just groaned loudly and tilted his head back, letting his arm cover his eyes. Pop and his bloody fashion kick. This night was going to end up with not only Poplock trying to get Raoul to try a different look, but now he would have Tracks backing him up for sure. The bot already fiddled with his hair too much he didn’t need him pulling at his clothes too. 

Rocksteady’s voice sounded over Verity’s muffled snickers beside him. “We also picked up Panda’s Wok, since you’re probably starving.”

He perked up at that. Free food would forgive any future suffering he had to deal with, especially if that free food included wonton soup.

Verity laughed, and hopped off the hood of the hummer. “Since your ride is here, I’m gonna head out. Probably should head home to face the music, anyway.” She snagged her jean jacket off the car and plucked the dart from between Raoul’s lips as she walked around him to the driver’s side. “See ya around, Raoul.”

He pushed off the bumper, “Yeah, see you later, get home safe.” He waved at her as she got into the beast of a car. He turned to look at the Bop Crew, and noticed that Tracks’ headlights were a little dimmer now, or maybe his eyes adjusted. He waved them forward, “You guys head over to the spare garage, I’m gonna lock up the front gate behind her.” 

Tracks gave a light rev and almost glided past him. Raoul flashed a smile at the retreating car, noticing that he could see himself in the side mirror as he passed.

Once Verity was out of the lot, Raoul pushed the big, wheeled, sliding gate door closed and locked it from the inside. The entire lot was encased in a tall chain link fence topped with barbed wire and lined with tarp on the inside of the gate. It was supposed to discourage people from stealing the cars they were working on or spare parts, but Raoul saw it as a extra protection against people seeing Tracks transform. He made sure to lock it after everyone went home after Rocksteady and Poplock just pushed it aside and came in, outing Tracks a few months back.

Which, by the sound of it, he wasted no time in shifting out of his car mode once the gate was shut. Raoul turned to see him just beginning to stretch with Rock and Pop waiting by his feet with bags in their arms. He rolled his eyes and started the trek across the huge lot. “You guys can open the garage door yourselves you know.”

Rocksteady shot him a grin, “Oh we could, but our arms are full.” 

Poplock waggled his eyebrows, “More importantly, who was that girl? A co-worker? She seemed friendly with you. Tell me, does she flex those arms at you all day? Is that what does it for you, swooning over women who can lift you up on one arm and your toolbox on the other?”

Raoul snorted at his antics as he walked closer, and noticed a sort of unreadable look pass over Tracks’ face as he looked down at his blonde friend. “ _I_ thought her arms were a little disfigured, I mean, with all those _splotches_ of colours all over them? She looks like she has the human equivalent of a paint nanites virus.”

Raoul shook his head as he walked past them for the garage door. “Naw man, she’s got tattoos. It a type of body modification, and art style. And boy, are her tattoos a form of art for sure!” He shook his head and he bent down to grab the handle and heaved the door up. “The colour and lines on those bad boys must have cost a pretty penny. And with how her rich _girlfriend_ showers her in gifts, I won’t be shocked to find out that just one of them cost more than a month of my rent.”

Rocksteady chuckled as he walked past, hitting the lightswitch with his elbow and moving to put their dinner down on the spare table by the wall. “Sounds less like a girlfriend and more like a sugar mama.” 

“Some people are just lucky.” Poplock sighed as he breezed up to his boyfriend, giving him a peck on the cheek and helping him take catrons out of the takeout bag. “Not that I’d trade my man for a couple extra zeros on my paycheck, of course.” 

Tracks looked confused as he crouched down to crawl into the garage. Raoul pulled the door down behind him. “You’re a fool, Pop. If I were you, I’d take a sugar mama or a sugar daddy on the side then split the cash between both of you. What’s a few extra hundred for a couple of dick pics and a handie once a week.” 

Poplock gasped and spun around to face him, a hand on his chest in mock offence and a poor attempt at smothering laughter. “Raoul! How shameless of you! What if your mother found out you think like this!” 

Raoul just laughed as he walked up to the table, taking the wonton soup Rock offered him. “Mi mamá wouldn’t care how I’m getting the money, as long as I wasn’t involved in a gang and am eating more. She’d probably shake their hand and invite them over to meet the family if she found out someone was taking care of me in any way, out here, all on my lonesome.” He shoveled a spoonful of broth into his mouth. Oh nice, it was still hot. 

Tracks sat down in his usual spot and stared in bewilderment at the three humans, who were stuffing their faces. “What _are_ you all gabbering about? What in Crystal City’s glittering garden is a ‘sugar daddy’?”

Rocksteady swallowed some noodles and pointed his chopsticks at the big bot. “A sugar daddy or mama, is someone who-- would you two call it dating? Or is hooking up a better term?”

“I think it depends, honestly.”

“Ok, whatever. It’s basically someone that pays big bucks to date you or just to have sex with you every once in a while.” Rocksteady went back to his food.

Tracks’ eyes got so wide, and he looked so scandalized that Raoul had to laugh, soup broth dribbling down his chin. 

“ _Raoul!_ This is no laughing matter! To even _joke_ about, about, _debasing_ yourself enough to be a--a Towerling’s _toymech_ is awful! Think of the social ramifications! You’d be no better than a _guttersmech_ from Dead End! Are you really that desperate for shanix?” While Raoul didn’t understand every word that came out of Tracks’ mouth, he did get the feeling that the bot sounded actually worried Raoul was about to throw himself at the nearest guy in a suit and blow him for spare cash in some alleyway. 

“Relax, big guy! I’m not that desperate.” He covered his mouth and leaned towards his human friends. “Yet.”

They all snickered at Tracks’ anguished _“Raoul!”_  
________

The humans were all full and happy and splayed over the spare chairs in the garage to digest for a minute. Since there were only two chairs, Raoul normally would have been invited to sit in Tracks’ lap or on his shoulder. But instead, since he teased the Corvette in front of company, all he got was a pointed sniff and a sharp “then suffer” and a gentle push in the chest so he was sprawled out on the cold ground. Pop and Rock just laughed at him from their shittily padded, tattered cloth, hard plastic thrones. 

After a few minutes of happy sighs and the occasional snicker. Poplock piped up. “So Tracks, this has been bothering me. How come you decided to come back to New York with Raoul than stay in your base. I mean, you got energon, now, but wouldn’t the government and the military be better options if you need to secure more?”

Tracks frowned, as he thought the question over, and Raoul propped himself up on his elbows to get a better view of he mech. He was curious about his answer too. 

“With the threat of the Decepticons gone, and no longer having the safety of the Autobot Army at my backstrut, I wouldn’t trust your government to not immediately go back on their alliance and try and lock me up and do experiments.” He genuinely looked troubled at that.

The three humans in the room all shrugged and said some version of “That’s fair.” Raoul got up and walked over to pat Tracks on one of his big wheeled feet. “Whatever you wanna do man, I’ll back you up. I’m in it for the long haul.” The other two nodded as well.

Tracks actually looked a little touched at that. “Thank you. Even with Prime’s team off planet, unless he sends out another deep space coded message, any Autobot who received his first message will be migrating to this planet anyways. So I don’t think I’ll be here alone that long.” He sounded a little hopeful under that confident tone he was using. 

Raoul perked up at that. “Other Autobots? They’ll be coming here? When!?” Oh my god, if Tracks just held out for a little while, slummed it with the humans for a bit longer, he might be able to make it back to his family!

“Ah yes, well you remember that story I told you yesterday? About how I came to this planet? Prowl’s ship was already on course to the Nedava base because of Prime’s message. The warp engines were pretty dated and always failing, so they couldn’t just warp here like The Nemesis did within a single Earth year.” He sneered, and Raoul had to rack his brain to remember that was the title for the Decepticon flagship here on Earth. “But if they didn’t encounter any troubles on their way, they would be here in, oh, humm, a little under two quartexs since I arrived with Cliffjumper and Arcee. So in human years that would be…. About thirty years, give or take a couple of your planet’s months.”

“Thirty years!” Raoul gasped, and Rocksteady shouted up from behind him-- “How the hell are you gonna feed yourself for thirty years!”

Tracks sniffed, “While I understand that is quite a long period of time for your species, that is not even close to a significant amount of time to my kind. It is just a little over a single quartex, I’ve had body work that took longer than that to finish.” His wings fluttered behind him, and Raoul was wondering if that was just a tell that he was bragging or if the body work was done on his wings and he was showing it off.

Poplock frowned up at him. “Buddy, I have exactly no idea what the hell a ‘quartex’ or whatever is.”

“Ah, it would be a single, humm, I suppose the proper translation is ‘season,’ in English. It’s a single Cybertronian season, then. We have four of them a vorn, which translates to a single year, and each vorn is around 83 of your Earth years. I’m 60,243 vorns old, which is _roughly_ 4.9 millions Earth years old.” He smiled down at the two humans in the chairs. He enjoyed seeing their reactions to his age. “Honestly, it only sounds so impressive because your kind count things on such small scales. By the time my carrier offlined, he was almost 6.3 million by your standards, and if it wasn’t for the war he would probably have lived even longer.”

Rocksteady and Poplocks’ jaws were, understandably, on the floor at this revelation. Raoul was already desensitized to how old Tracks and his kind was. So he focused on the big issue.

“Rocksteady was right, how are we gonna avoid the men in black _and_ keep you juiced up properly for thirty years! That seems like we’re playing a dangerous game, and I know for a fact we’re gonna mess up somehow and someone will notice you’re still around. They’ll come looking for you and we won’t be able to hide for that long once they start lurking around energon mines to catch you when you need to refuel.” 

Tracks sighed, picking at the space between his claw joints. “Yes, _well_ , I have enough quality energon on hand that should last me up to a year if I ration it. Or if I don’t get seriously injured again and kick off my auto-repair. But since my fuel lines are still gunked up because of that slag I’ve been drinking, it might start up again soon anyways.” He waved a claw in the air, “And besides, that thirty year wait is for when _my_ old crew gets here, I have no idea if there are any Autobots that are closer to this planet then they were. For all I know, an Autobot might arrive tomorrow.” 

Raoul sat down by the big metal foot and leaned against it. He felt the machinery on the inside still as he settled and warm on his back. “Still, thirty years. I’d be like what…” He silently did the math in his head, then groaned. “Oh man, I’d almost be fifty! Thats gross.”

Poplock snickered. “Oh god, imagining you driving around with Tracks, balding and grey and wrinkled, probably still wearing that jacket! You’d look like a walking mid-life crisis!” 

Rocksteady nudged his boyfriend, “Naw man, imagine if he has kids? Grand kids? Tracks would have to change his alt to a soccer van!” They both howled with laughter.

Raoul turned to glare at them over the edge of Tracks’ foot. Before he could retort, he shivered as claw tips lightly ran through his hair and ended up giving his ponytail a playful tug. He leaned away from the touch but Tracks’ claws just followed anyway.

“I’m quite fond of your human ability to change colour as you get older. I think that, oh what was the term called... salt and pepper style? Where you have bits of silver strands running through your hair? I think that would look quite fetching on you.” Tracks smiled softly down at Raoul, playfully twirling his ponytail around a clawtip. 

He felt his cheeks heat a little. “Naw, I’d probably just keep dying my hair black if it went grey. No way am I looking like I got one foot in the grave at fifty.” Tracks just gave a pleased little hum and tugged the ponytail again, almost like he was trying to pull Raoul into leaning back against his foot. Rolling his eyes, he went with the motion, ignoring how Tracks’ engine ran just a little louder than normal.

Suddenly, loud guitar riffs sounded behind him. He once again turned to look over at his friends, confused. They both had shit eating grins on their faces as Rocksteady held up his IPhone 3G. The rift sounded familiar…

It wasn’t until Roger Taylor’s voice started to croon the first line that the song title clicked. 

Face flaming red with indignation and embarrassment, Raoul gave a wordless battle cry as he scrambled to lunge over Tracks to get at his so-called friends.

“YOU ARE DEAD TO ME ROCKY YOU HEAR THAT! DEAD TO ME!” Raoul tackled his cackling friend off his chair. They tussled on the ground over the phone, Raoul’s yelling covering over the lyrics. 

As he shoved Rocksteady’s face into the ground with one hand he managed to slap the music off with his other, just before the chorus. Without the loud guitar blaring in his ear he could just hear Tracks’ annoyed sigh before Rocksteady elbowed him in the ribs, knocking the air out of him. 

“Watch where your hitting! You might break it!” Raoul grunted as Rocksteady shoved him away from his delicate phone. 

“¡Vete al demonio, cabrón!” He shoved him back, trying to pin his arms down.

They wrestled on the ground for another ten minutes, not much more than rough housing than anything else by the end of it. While they did that, Tracks and Poplock tried to figure out how to set up the blonde’s laptop so everyone could see the screen. They just ended up putting it on the table and moving both it and the chairs over between Tracks’ legs.

Once everything was set up Tracks just plucked Raoul from his tussle on the ground. The latino felt his breath catch as he was _oh-so-easily_ lifted, and he could feel his face light with embarrassment as those claws wrapped around his torso securly. He was set onto the bot’s shoulder, who was tisking at how rumpled he looked. Tracks paused, then leaned his face in closer to Raoul and opened his mouth. After a second, the bot’s whole face twisted up into disgust as he turned away from him.

“Oh, ugh, have you been smoking those awful organic cy-gars again? You smell dreadful.” 

Raoul just shrugged, a lazy smile on his lips. “Maybe.”

The disgust on Tracks’ face morphed a little into disappointment, which just made Raoul even more amused. He had no idea how Tracks pulled off the scrunched up nose look without having a nose. “Those things will cut down your lifespan even faster, you know.”

Raoul just shrugged, and settled in as the first episode started to play.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof, I don't know whats happening but this is my second attempt at trying to write what is SUPPOSED to happen after Tracks and Raoul get back but its like im writing anything BUT  
> I promise plot will come back next chapter, which is half written already but dont expect it soon cause school has been emotionally taxing as of late
> 
> Also no, that wasn't springer and he's not showing up sorry, but Verity's mysterious gf who will probs never be mentioned again is HEAVILY based on IDW springer ^^; Also brownie points if you can tell me who her tattoos are supposed to be and what song Rocky was playing :P and I apologize for the bayverse Sam bashing and my flagrant love for IDW Verity, she wasn't even supposed to be here

**Author's Note:**

> I had this plot bunny for a while and decided to finally write it out, and its taking too long for me to write all at once so ive decided to do it piece by piece, and since im busy in my last year of uni i wont know how often ill be able to update, sorry ^^;  
> As always, if you notice any grammar/spelling/Spanish mistakes or just want to ask me about anything you can hit me up on my Tumblr at http://youareunbearable.tumblr.com/ or leave a comment!


End file.
